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IT IS ALWAYS SUMMER HERE,” SAID 







PEACE ISLAND 



/ 




BY ELLIOT McCORMICK. 

With 

Other Stories for Boys 




BOSTON ' - 

D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY 

32 FRANKLIN STREET 


\ 


Copyright, 1S83. 

D. Lothrop & Company. 


CONTENTS 


. 


I. 

The Isle of Peace .... 

Eliot McCormick. 

II. 

A MERCANTILE TRANSACTION 

Byron A. Brooks. 

III. 

The Christmas Monks ... 

Mary E. Wilkins. 

IV. 

How Sin Hop went ashore 

John R. Coryell. 

V. 

Thj: lost five dollar Bill 

M. E. W. S. 

VI. 

The Kinkipaws 

Eliot Glover. 

VH. 

Ralph’s Cub 

John Preston True. 

VIII. 


A School for Fleas . . 

. Penn Shirley. 


A School for Fleas 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


It is always Summer here, She said " . G. F. Barnes. 
Wanted — two good Boys . . Jennie McDermott. 
The Boys at work in the Convent Garden. 

Jessie McDermott. 

The Prince runs away . . . Jessie McDermott. 

What little Sin Hop saw from the Sampan. 

W. P. Bodfish. . 

The Sampan was carried along with the 

Speed of Lightning . . . W. P. Bodfish. 
Stoutenberg did as He was bid . . F. J. Church. 

On the Night of the Excursion . W. P. Bodfish. 


THE ISLE OF PEACE. 



O one ought to be angry on Christmas eve, 


^ and yet Tom Fowler as he dashed out of his 
father’s house, slamming the door behind him, and 
strode down the path to the front gate, showed that 
he was in a violent passion. 

“I’ll never come back!” he declared. “Never! 
So long as I live ! ” 

It was a cold afternoon and the wind blew pierc- 
ingly down towards the shore. But Tom did not 
feel it. He was too angry to be cold. Walking rap- 
idly along the road he came in a few minutes to the 
beach, where the waves were rolling in with a sullen 
roar, which expressed perfectly Tom’s own feelings. 
For a moment or two he stood and listened, while 
the 50 und seemed to echo along the curve of the bay 
from Marblehead to Boston. Far out at sea — as he 


THE ISLE OF PEACE. 


gazed in that direction — the horizon presented an 
unbroken line. There was nothing between him and 
France ; though while he looked Tom recollected the 
tales which he had heard the fishermen tell of the 
Phantom Island that hovers around the Massachu- 
setts coast, and shelters the Quakers who were 
exiled two hundred years ago. The spectacle of 
the sea at length suggested to Tom a means of es- 
cape.' 

“ I don’t care what becomes of me,” he said 
gloomily ; “ I might as well be drowned as not.” 

A little way up the shore, where a creek set in, 
was his father’s boathouse, in which Tom’s own dory 
was kept. Going to the place and unlocking the 
door he rolled the dory out, launched her in the 
creek, set the mast and rudder, and unfurled the sail. 
There were crackers and water, and a compass in the 
locker, which would serve him until he got to Boston 
or fell in with an outward-bound ship — he did not 
care which, All that he wanted was to get away, and 
that the fresh wind would easily enable him to do. 
The wind, indeed, was almost too fresh. It caught 
the little sail as Tom steered out into the bay; and 


THE ISLE OF PEACE. 


if he had not hauled olf a little, it might have cap- 
sized him at the start. Presently he was under way. 
The boat dove through the waves, and Tom felt that 
at last he was carrying out his plan. 

Now, however, he began to feel cold. The sun was 
setting, and though its rays had not given much heat 
before, it seemed colder when they had gone. He 
buttoned his jacket up tightly around him, but that 
did not keep out the penetrating wind. Before long 
the twilight had deepened into night. Tom shivered 
with the increasing cold, but he would not run into 
shore. By and by he began to feel numb and sleepy. 
His hands were chilled and the ropes were icy with 
the frozen spray. 

“ Td better drop the sail,” he concluded, “ and 
wrap myself up in it. I’d rather drift than freeze.” 

It took but little time to put his idea into effect. 
Lowering the sail and unshipping the mast, Tom 
infolded himself in the canvas and stretched out 
underneath the seats. The tide was running out, and 
he knew that with the wind it would carry himout to sea. 

“I’ll be somewhere in the morning,” he said, “it 
don’t matter much where.” 


THE ISLE OF PEACE. 


He closed his eyes, and in- a few moments the 
stars were looking down out of the cold dark sky on 
a drifting boat and a sleeping boy. 

It was bright daylight when Tom woke up ; and to 
his great surprise he was very warm. The air was 
soft and balmy as summer, or as though he had 
sailed around Cape Hatteras in the night and was 
skirting the Carolina coast. To his greater surprise 
there was land off his port bow. Had he turned 
around and drifted back to shore ? Tom looked at 
his compass and found that the boat still headed 
towards the east. He looked backward and no land 
was in sight, while that in front seemed only an 
island, whose long blue line reminded him of Block 
Island as he had once seen it from Point Judith. 
What could it be? Tom knew the chart of the coast 
perfectly well, and was quite sure that there was no 
island within one night’s sail of Marblehead. His 
curiosity was excited and he felt like a second Colum- 
bus discovering a new part of the American coast. 
K,e-shipping the mast and hoisting the sail, he headed 
the boat for the island which every moment grew 
more and more distinct. It was not long before’Tom 


THE ISLE OF PEACE. 

could see houses, which proved to him that, whatever 
the place might be, he was not its original discoverer. 
Indeed, as he drew near, he could detect a single 
figure standing upon the strand. When he had come 
into shallow water, Tom dropped the sail and steered 
the boat on to the shelving sand. The figure which 
moved back a step or two at his approach, was that 
of a little girl quaintly dressed in a blue homespun 
frock, with a white handkerchief around her neck and 
crossed at the throat. Her eyes, Tom thought, as 
she raised them to his, were like those of a deer. 

Tom lifted his hat politely. 

“ Can you tell me where I am ? ” he asked. 

“ Thee is on the Isle of Peace,” she said gravely. 

Tom was puzzled ; there was no such island in any 
geography that he had ever studied. 

“ But I don’t know where that is,” he answered. 

“ It is a place of which few people know,” she said. 
“ Those that live here are Friends. They never leave 
the Isle, and it is seldom that any one discovers it.” 

This gave Tom the clue. It was what he had been 
thinking of only last night : why had he not thought 
of it again ? 


THE ISLE OF PEACE. 


“Ah! ” he said, “you mean the Phantom Island.” 

She smiled compassionately, and waved her little 
hand toward the village which stretched up from the 
shore. 

“ Look ! ” she said. “ Is anything more real ? ” 

It was indeed a substantial looking scene. The 
houses, though old-fashioned and presenting innu- 
merable gables, were well-built and beautifully neat. 
The gardens surrounding them bloomed with flowers, 
and the elms which overhung the road were thick 
with foliage. Tom wondered if he or the almanac 
were wrong. 

“ Will you please tell me,” he said, “ if this isn’t 
Christmas-day ?” 

For a moment the maiden looked perplexed. 

“ Thee means the day of our Lord’s birth ? ” she 
asked at length inquiringly. “ We do not observe 
that; but it is the twenty-fifth of December.” 

“ But everything is green ! ” Tom exclaimed. “ The 
flowers are out. In Marblehead things are frozen 
up tight, and there won’t be a blossom for six 
months.” 

“ Verily ! ” observed the little girl. “ But the Isle 


THE ISLE OF PEACE. 


of Peace is washed by a warm current. It is always 
summer here.” 

Tom drew a long breath. 

“Well,” he declared, “that is a comfortable ar- 
rangement. “ Have you any idea how far it is from 
the mainland.?” 

She shook her head. 

“No one ever goes there,” she repeated; “thee is 
the first one who has been here for many, many years.” 

“ And don’t you ever hear about what is going 
on ? ” 

She smiled gravely. 

“ The world goes on,” she said, “ that is enough 
for us.” 

“ And you don’t get the Boston papers ? ” 

“ Papers ? ” interrogatively. 

“ Yes : the newspapers. They come out every day, 
you know, and have all the news of the world in 
them.” 

“We do not get anything,” she said; “we do not 
want anything ; we are at peace.” 

“ But what country do you belong to ? Aren’t you 
a part of the United States ?” 


THE ISLE OF PEACE. 


“ The United States of Holland ? ” she asked. 

No ; we do not belong to that.” 

“Why, no,” said Tom; “the United States of 
America of course.” 

The look of perplexity deepened on the little girPs 
face, and she answered as Tom himself had done 
about the Island, 

“ I do not know where that is.” 

Tom was stupefied. Here was a girl somewhere 
within a night’s sail of Boston who did not; even 
know where the United States were. 

“ Well, I should remark ! ” he exclaimed. 

" “ Will thee not tell me where it is ? ” she asked 
timidly. 

Tom laughed. 

“ Why, of course I’ll tell you,” he said, “ but it is 
so ridiculous — to think you don’t know ! The United 
States are the old thirteen colonies with twenty-five 
States added and a lot of Territories beside.” 

“ And do they belong to England ? ” 

“ Belong to England ! ” Tom drew himself up as 
though the majesty of the American eagle was repre- 
sented in his person. “ I guess they don’t belong to 


THE ISLE OF PEACE. 


England. We fixed that business more than a hun- 
- dred years ago. Why, you’re awfully behind the age 
here. If you don’t know about the Revolutionary 
War, of course you don’t know about the Rebel- 
Lon ? ” 

She shook her head while a little blush came upon 
her cheeks. 

— “Nor the Centennial ; nor President Garfield’s 
death .? ” 

“ I know very little,” she murmured, apologeti- 
cally ; “ it was more than two hundred years ago 
when my forefathers came here, and we have not 
learned anything since.” 

Tom felt a pang of reproach ; as though this were 
Eve and he were offering her the forbidden fruit. 

“ Ah ! ” he said, “ you are a great deal better off. 
It is a great bore to have to learn all these things. 

I wish I didn’t. What I want to know is why I 
found this place when so few other people have ever 
seen it.” 

The little girl’s eyes rested on Tom’s open, boyish 
face, as though she would read his nature for her- 
self. 


THE ISLE OF PEACE. 


“ Sometimes,” she said, “those find it who are at 
peace themselves ; and sometimes those who are not 
at peace, but need it.” 

In a moment the disturbing thoughts of last night 
came back to Tom’s recollection. His face flushed 
and his lips were pressed more closely together. 

“ Well,” he said, “ I certainly ain’t at peace.” 

A pained look came into her dark blue eyes. 

“No,” she said, “ I see thee is not. But thee may 
be,” she added. 

He looked around on the tranquil scene. On one 
hand the sea lay quiet and glassy beneath the rays 
of the low lying sun : on the other the birds were 
singing gayly in the arching elms. 

“ One ought to find it here,” he said. 

“ Thee may find it anywhere,” she said gently. 

Tom jumped on to the bow of the boat, which he 
had drawn up on the shore, and sat there swinging 
his feet. 

“ Well,” he said, “ I’ll tell you about it. I was 
awfully mad when I left home last night, and I 
didn’t care where I went. You see I had had a row 
with my mother ” — 


THE ISLE OF PEACE. 


Her countenance expressed the deepest distress. 

“ Thy mother ! ” she cried. 

“ Oh, my stepmother 1” he explained, “my father’s 
second wife. She doesn’t like me for a cent, and I 
don’t like her. She told me last night she wished 
I’d go away and not come back again, and I told 
her I would — I’d never come back as long as I 
lived. So I took the dory and sailed away. When 
it came night I let the boat drift and went to 
sleep, and when I woke up the first thing I saw was 
this island ” — He broke off as though a new 
thought had struck him. “ Do you think your people 
would let me stay here ? ” he asked eagerly. 

She looked at him wistfully for a moment. 

“ Would thee like to stay ? ” she asked. 

“ I’ve got to stay somewhere,” he said ; “ it might 
as well be here as anywhere else.” 

She shook her head. 

“ Thee could not stay,” she said, “ feeling as thee 
does. Only those can live here who are at peace. 
Thee can only get peace in one way.” 

“ How is that ? ” he asked. 

“ Thee must go home,” she said quietly. 


l’HE isle of peace. 


Tom stared amazedly at his little monitor. 

“ Oh, I can’t do that ! ” he said. “ My stepmother 
is glad to get rid of me.” 

“Is thy father glad ?” she asked. “Will he not 
be sorry to hear that thee is gone away ? ” 

Tom turned his face a little aside. 

“ Yes,” he said after a moment, “ my father will 
•be sorry.” 

“ And ought thee not to go back for his sake ? ” 

“ Yes,” he said hesitatingly, “ I suppose I ought ; 
but I would rather stay here.” 

The little maiden at the sound of a footstep turned 
around. 

“ See ! ” she cried. “ Here come my father and 
the Elders. They have seen thy boat. Ask them if 
thee may stay.” 

Tom looked up arid saw coming down the street 
a party of staid, sedate-looking men, reminding him 
as he gazed of the pictures of William Penn in the 
school history. He jumped down from the boat and 
respectfully awaited their approach. 

“ Father ! ” the little girl called out, as the fore- 
most man came near, “ this is a lad who has been 


THE ISLE OF PEACE. 


driven here in his boat by the winds, and would like 
to stay with us.’' 

The man bent on Tom a grave but not unkindly 
gaze. 

What is thy name ? ” he asked. 

“ Thomas Fowler, sir,” replied Tom. 

‘‘ And thee wants to stay here ? ” 

“ I should like to, sir, if you will keep me.” 

“What is the matter? Why is thee not satisfied 
to remain at home ? ” 

Tom briefly rehearsed his story, to which the Elders 
listened with evident interest. 

“ Thee is not of age,” the spokesman remarked 
when he had finished. 

“I’m only fifteen, sir,” 

“ Then thee is entitled to thy father’s support, and 
he is entitled to thy semce. Is it not so ? ” 

Tom looked down on the ground. 

“ Yes, sir,” he said slowly, “ I suppose so.” 

“ And if thee runs away thee robs thy father of so 
much help.” 

“ I relieve him of so much burden, too,” said Tom. 

The Elder’s eye rested gravely on Tom’s face. 


THE ISLE OF PEACE. 


“ Does thee think it is a burden ? ” he asked. 

Tom hesitated a moment, then he looked up and 
frankly met the others’ gaze. 

“ No, I don’t,” he said. “ Father never grudged 
me a penny in my life. It’s shabby of me to go 
away and leave him.” 

The Elder stepped back and spoke briefly with the 
others. 

“ Listen ! ” he said, turning again to Tom. “ If 
thee wishes we will keep thee. All we ask is, that 
thee shall promise to remain with us until thee shall 
be of age. Whether it be right for thee to stay or 
to go back to thy father, we leave thee to de- 
cide.” 

Tom drew a long breath. This was putting a 
heavier responsibility on him than he had sought. 
As he looked up the village street it seemed more 
beautiful than ever. How balmy the air was ! how 
bright the flowers ! how peaceful the scene ! and with 
a sweet and trustful countenance the little Quaker 
maiden, standing by her father’s side, met his own 
glance of boyish admiration. If he remained, what 
a delightful life might he not lead ! If he went 


THE ISLE OF PEACE. 


back, it would be to the bleak winds and damp bays 
of Marblehead, to the sharp tongue of his step- 
mother, to the hard grind of his father’s farm. But 
could he remain at peace with himself ? Would not 
the thought of his father come up to accuse him ? 
Would he not feel that he had run away from his 
duty ? Tom was fond of poetry, and a line of Ten- 
nyson’s Lotos Eaters came into his head. Would 
he be any better than they who sat down in tropical 
idleness and forgot all about their friends at home ? 
He turned away so that he might not see the little 
girl’s face. 

“ I think I’ll go home,” he said quietly. 

The Elder laid his hand on the boy’s head. 

“ Thee is right,” he said approvingly. Thee 
could not have stayed. But before thee goes will 
thee not come up and look at our homes ? ” 

Tom shook his head. 

“ No,” he said, “ I won’t go any farther : it would 
only make me want to stay more. I’d better get 
away from here as soon as possible. You didn’t tell 
me your name,” he said, turning suddenly towards 
his first acquaintance. 


THE ISLE OF PEACE. 


Her eyes as she raised them to his were w^et with 
tears. 

“ My name is Ruth Fox,” she said. “ Thee will 
not forget us, Thomas ? ” 

Fie took her little hands in his own. 

“ I will never forget you,” he said, “ but I wish I 
might have stayed.” 

“ Ah ! ” she said simply, “ but thee knows thee 
could not. Perhaps thee will find the Island again,” 
she added wistfully. 

“ Maybe some day you’ll come to the mainland,” 
he suggested. “ Why not come, sir,” he went on, 
addressing the Elder ; “ all the old quarrels have 
died out, and the Friends have as many rights as 
anybody else.” 

But the man shook his head. 

“ Why should we come ? ” he asked. “ Is there 
anything there that we have not got here ?” 

“Railroads,” Tom ventured, “ telegraphs, the tele- 
phone, sewing machines — oh, there are lots of 
things you haven’t got ! ” 

“ Would they do us any good ? ” the man asked 
quietly; “ would we be any happier for them?” 


THE ISLE OF PEACE. 


Tom looked around for the last time on the beau- 
tiful picture. No place that he knew could match 
that ; and no face that he knew shone with the con- 
tentment of these simple-hearted folk. No/’ he 
said frankly, “ I don’t believe you would. But I 
wish you’d come all the same.” 

Ruth sighed. “ I like to come,” she murmured. 

The father looked down at her and smiled, while 
Tom felt again the sense of guilty self-reproach. 
Had he come here only to make the little girl dissatis- 
fied with her own home ? 

“ Oh, you wouldn’t like it at all,” he said hurriedly ; 
‘‘ it’s cold and bleak and disagreeable ; there won’t 
be any flowers till June, and people don’t live any- 
thing like the happy life you do here. They quarrel 
and get angry ; and the railroads run off the track, 
and everybody says the telephone is a nuisance. It’s 
a thousand times better here. I wish I could stay. 
But I can’t,” he sighed, releasing Ruth’s hand 
and turning towards the boat. Giving it a push, he 
sent it into the water and jumped into the bow. In 
a moment the wind had filled the sail and the dory 
was moving off. 


THE ISLE OF PEACE. 


‘‘ Good-bye ! ” he cried' as bravely as he could, 
taking off his hat. 

“ Farewell ! ’’ returned the Elders heartily. 

Ruth raised her head from her father’s shoulder, 
where she had rested it, and Tom could see that her 
eyes were full of tears. 

“ Farewell, Thomas ! ” she cried. 

It was the last sound that came to him from the 
Isle of Peace. Tom himself leaned his head against 
the mast and cried while the boat was blown away 
from the Island. When he opened his eyes it was 
nowhere to be seen. The air had again grown cold, 
and far off in the distance Tom could detect the 
Massachusetts shore. 

Mrs. Fowler had spent an uncomfortable morning. 
It had not been pleasant the night before to tell her 
husband that Tom had gone away and was not com- 
ing back. Her conscience reproached her with the 
harsh things she had said to Tom and with the 
unmotherly way in which she had treated him. She 
missed his quick step and cheery voice around the 
house more than she could have imagined ; and every 


THE ISLE OF PEACE. 


once in a while she caught herself listening for his 
footfall outside the door. But he would not come 
back. He had said that he would not and Tom was 
not a boy that changed his mind. His father had 
discovered that the dory was gone, so that no doubt 
was left as to the manner in which he had left. But 
had the dory weathered the wind.? Or, had Tom 
stood the cold ? Mrs. Fowler pictured to herself the 
boat bottom up and Tom frozen or drowned. The 
thought made her nervous. She felt almost as 
though she might be Tom’s murderer. It was 
Christmasday, but there was no peace in her heart 
nor any of the cheer which the season ought to bring. 
“ A.h ! ” she cried, “ if Tom would only come back ! ” 
• Just then the front gate clicked as it did when 
any one came in. It might be Mr. Fowler or one of 
the neighbors, but Mrs. Fowler’s heart beat with the 
thought that it might possibly be Tom, She was 
trimming a pie at the moment, and stopped with the 
knife in her hand, while a footstep came up the path. 
She listened intently. Could it be any one else’s 
step than Tom’s ? The door opened, and Mrs. Fow- 
ler suddenly felt the load that she had been carrying 


THE ISLE OF PEACE. 


all the day, roll off forever. “ O Tom ! she cried, 
and dropping in a chair she burst into tears. 

Tom who had no idea of the state of mind through 
which his stepmother had gone, and who had never 
seen her show her emotions, or fancied indeed that 
she had any, was struck with surprise. “Why, 
mother ! ” he exclaimed. “ What is the matter ? 

It was a minute or two before she could speak. 

“ I’ve been so frightened,” she said brokenly, “ and 
I’m so glad you’ve come back.” 

Tom drew a breath of relief while he hung his cap 
on the nail. On the way home he had tried to fancy 
what his mother might say, but his imagination had 
not pictured any such reception as this. If he had 
had any lingering regrets that he had not staid on 
the Island they were all gone now. 

“Well, mother,” he said, taking up the water-pail 
which he saw was empty and starting for the pump, 
“ I’d an invitation to stay away, but I didn’t accept.” 

“ Who was it from ? ” she asked, displaying a new 
interest in Tom’s concerns. 

“ It was from some Quakers,” he said, as he stood 
in the door. 


THE ISLE OF PEACE. 


“Oh, well ! ” said his stepmother, “you can go and 
see them sometime.” 

Tom smiled a little sadly as he went out. 

“ I’ll never see them again,” he said to himself. 

But all the same Tom never goes out in the dory 
without looking seaward for the Phantom Island ; 
and when he visits Boston he eagerly scans the faces 
that pass him by, hoping that some day or other 
among the crowd, he may discover the face of little 
Ruth. 


A MERCANTILE TRANSAC- 
TION. 



HEN I was a child a gentleman gave me 


a gold dollar; and most highly did I prize 


the little beauty. There is something in a gold 
or silver coin which naturally impresses a child 
that it is a thing of value as well as of beauty; a 
something which its paper representative does not 
possess. My gold dollar though no larger than the 
little three-cent piece, was worth a hundred cents — a 
mysterious quality which I could not quite understand. 

But it lacked one thing ; it was unproductive. As 
long as it lay in the bureau drawer, it was a gold dol- 
lar, and nothing more. My father had given me a cor- 
ner in the garden, where by planting a few ears of pep 
corn, I obtained a winter’s supply of that desirable 
article. My mother also had some sheep which she 
“ let out to double ” once in four years, with the 
proceeds of which she supplied us with spending 
money. 


A MERCANTILE TRANSACTION. 


But my gold dollar would neither grow nor double ; 
and I sought for some means to increase it. My 
only experience in mercantile transactions was with 
the corner grocer who sold candy for a cent a stick. 
At length by diligent inquiries I learned that candy 
could be bought at the market town much cheaper ; 
that a pound which contained forty or fifty sticks, cost 
only twenty-five cents. 

Here was an idea ; I could buy it by the pound 
and retail it for a cent a stick, and double my money. 
So I prevailed upon my father to invest part of my 
gold dollar in candy, and I set to work to build a 
store. With this work I was familiar, for I had built 
many stores when there was no prospect of goods or 
customers. But now I resolved to build on a scale 
worthy of the occasion. With great labor and pains 
it was at last constructed. It stood by the fence 
facing the lane. To be sure there were no travellers 
that way, but I knew I could drum up customers 
when the goods should arrive. Soon they came, two 
pounds of delicious candy. I could hardly realize 
that it was mine. But though I felt very rich as the 
possessor of such stock of sweetness, I with great 


A MERCANTILE TRANSACTION. 


effort refrained from consuming it, for was not this a 
business transaction ? and I had an eye to the 
profits. In order to make my display perfectly irre- 
sistable, I expended the remainder of my capital in 
maple sugar, which I melted up and cast into beauti- 
ful scalloped cakes, in size to suit the purchaser. 
And the genuine article it was. It was not like the 
little yellow cubes sold on city corners, called maple 
sugar, but in reality a vile compound of molasses and 
sugar-barrel scrapings, which the unsuspecting city 
children devour under the delusion that it is the deli- 
cious products of the maple-tree. 

The day of the grand opening arrived. It had 
been judiciously advertised in the right quarters 
without any expenditure of printers’ ink, or ringing of 
auction bell. I soon had all the youngsters in town 
gathered around gazing upon my immense stock of 
consolidated sweetness, carefully examining the 
goods, inquiring the prices, and wondering how I 
could have become the possessor of such an amount 
of candy and sugar. I walked up and down behind 
my counter of unplaned boards, surveying my stock 
and store with modest pride, arranging it to the best 


A MERCANTILE TRANSACTION. 


advantage, answering questions and inviting the by- 
standers to walk up and purchase. Here, thought I, 
is a fine beginning for business. Here is the store 
and the goods, and here are the customers ready and 
anxious to buy. 

But there was one small impediment. In order to 
complete the transfer of the candy and sugar cakes 
from my counter to the purchaser’s mouths, an 
equivalent was necessary; namely, one cent. One by 
one the customers came up, examined, priced — and 
fell back. They had not the necessary one cent. 
And soon, to my great disappointment, it became 
evident that there was not one in the whole crowd 
who possessed that bit of copper. 

Gradually, after finding that I meant business and 
could not allow my goods to be “ sampled,” the 
crowd of would-be buyers disappeared and I was 
left alone, undisputed possessor of all I surveyed. 
Yet I was not happy. This was not business. I was 
about to put up the shutters and retire from trade, 
when a new customer appeared and taught me how 
to do business without money. It was the village 
bully. Deacon Dump. With a most engaging air and 


A MERCANTILE TRANSACTION. 

patronizing manner, he approached, praised my store, 
examined my stock, and finally inquired the price of 
a sugar cake. “ One cent,” was the prompt reply. 

“All right,” said he. “I haven’t got the money 
to-day, but I’ll pay you to-morrow. You trust, don’t 
you ? ” 

The feasibility of doing business on the credit 
system had not occurred to me ; but from what I 
knew of the character of my customer, I declined to 
trust him, 

“You can’t sell unless you trust,” replied he ; “be- 
sides, you needn’t trust others if you don’t want to ; 
but just trust me this time, and I’ll pay you to-morrow 
sure, ’pon my word and honor. My mother promised 
me a cent for being good to-day,” added he with a 
sanctimonious look, “ and don’t you believe my 
mother ? ” 

I did not venture to doubt his mother’s word, but 
still I declined to deliver the goods on credit. But 
all the afternoon he hung around, begging and prom- 
ising, until not knowing how to get away from him, 
and being really anxious to sell, I let him have the 
cake, on his solemn promise to pay the next day. 


A MERCANTILE TRANSACTION. 


This was a beginning of business, to be sure ; yet 
I passed an anxious night thinking of the money 
which was owing me, and early next morning sought 
my debtor and demanded payment. The humble 
pleader of the previous day was a changed individ- 
ual. With an easy air he put me off, saying, “ I will 
pay you to-morrow ! ” 

I could do nothing but wait for the morrow. The 
next day I again asked my due. Again he replied 
“to-morrow,” with a knavish laugh which gave me 
little hope, yet the next day I applied again. He 
had become tired of that, and now he declared that 
he would not pay, and if ever I asked him for it again 
he threatened to give me the biggest “ licking ” I 
ever had in my life, and began to make gestures for 
putting it into immediate execution ; such that I was 
glad to escape without my money. 

Thus I learned of one way of paying debts. 

But I had another lesson still to learn in commer- 
cial affairs. I had sold a few cents worth of candy, 
and began to have some hopes of success, when an 
opposition establishment opened across the way. 
Jack Shepherd, my neighbor, whose father was a mer- 


A MERCANTILE TRANSACTION. 


chant, determined not to be outdone in enterprise, 
had opened a store for the sale of what, the world 
was informed by large straggling letters on a shingle 
nailed to the fence, was : 

Genuine, 

Permanine, 

Currant Wine. 

This stroke of advertising drew immensely. What 
the second word in the advertisement meant, no one 
could tell ; but the last word was sweet in the memory 
of every youngster who had taken sumptuous tastes 
of that liquid stored in the cellar for extra use. 

I saw at once that I must be equally enterprising 
or give up business. So that evening I set my wits at 
work to devise an equally poetical sign. 

“Candy sweet,” I began easily enough, for the 
adjective is unalterably linked to that noun ; but I 
must have three rhymes ; and not, like my neighbor, 
having sufficient ingenuity to invent a new word, I 
was at a loss. At length after great cogitation I pro- 
duced another : “ That can’t be beat — 

Candy sweet, 

That can’t be beat. 


A MERCANTILE TRANSACTION. 


That sounded well, and as for violating a rule of' 
grammar in my verb, I felt no compunctions ; for I was 
yet in blissful ignorance of those snares for youthful 
tongues. 

So I went on 

And maple sugar. 

There I stopped. I could not find another word 
to rhyme and yet apply to maple sugar ; and as for 
omitting mention of that staple of my stock, it was out 
of the question. 

Candy sweet, 

That can’t be beat, 

And maple sugar — 

I repeated it over and over as I rolled from one 
side of my bed to the other, beating my brains in vain 
for the other word. At last tired nature came to my 
relief and carried me off to the land of sleep. When 
I arose in the morning, there was the unfinished sign 
that would not down. Suddenly an inspiration came 
upon me ; I seized a piece of board, and wrote in my 
boldest hand ; 

Candy sweet, 

That can’t be beat, 

And maple sugar. Treat. 


A MERCANTILE TRANSACTION. 


Here was triumph. I had the three rhymes ; but 
what relation the last word, treaty had to the 
others, was a question I did not stop to answen 
Whether it meant that my customers were to walk up 
and treat themselves, or whether I was to treat them, 
was all unexplained. That could be done in words. 

The sign was posted opposite to that of my compet- 
itor’s. But the customers after puzzling over my 
poetry and casting a longing look at my sweets, passed 
over and gathered around the store of my rival where 
“ Genuine, permanine, currant wine ” disappeared with 
alarming rapidity into the mouths of the young patrons. 
My counter was almost deserted notwithstanding the 
attractions of my new poetical sign. 

I soon discovered the cause : A currency was in 
circulation on that side of the street cheaper than 
mine, and consequently carrying all the business on. 
It was pins. Long pins and short pins, straight pins 
and crooked pins, new pins and old pins — all were 
taken in exchange for a mixture of water, sugar and 
currant juice called “ Genuine, permanine, currant 
wine.” Here was another idea. I saw that I must 
conform to the laws of trade, or give up business, so 


A MERCANTILE TRANSACTION. 


I took the former alternative and began to shout: 

Candy sweet, 

That can’t be beat, 

For ten pins a stick, 

And maple sugar treat, 

All complete, 

For one pin a lick! 

I soon perceived that I had struck the popular 
heart. My counter was surrounded by ready buyers, 
and I was busy taking and counting pins for candy 
and watching the poorer youngsters to see that they 
did not take more than one lick of sugar for one pin. 

Those were prosperous times. Never were pins in 
greater demand. The mothers’ supply of that useful 
article disappeared with mysterious quickness. One 
boy, having exhausted his mother’s stock, driven to 
his wits, ran into a neighbor’s house in great apparent 
agony and begged for two pins to pick a sliver out of 
his foot. My competitor’s counter was deserted, and 
he became one of my best customers. 

Rapidly my stock decreased, and my pockets and 
coat sleeves were stuck full of pin currency. In 
truth they were so plentifully distributed about my 


A MERCANTILE TRANSACTION. 


person that I dared not sit down, for fear of coming 
in contact with them. 

In the midst of my prosperity I became extrava- 
gant and crossed over to my rival’s shop and became 
the heaviest consumer of his liquid stock, while he in 
turn purchased more largely than ever of my sweets. 
The poor youths who had spent all their pins looked 
on in envy, while we swaggered and boasted of oui 
riches, and occasionally patronized some of the smaller 
ones with a treat. I even became a. buyer of some of 
my own goods from my rival, who had shrewdly ex- 
pended his whole quantity of pins in my candy. 
Business was never brisker than in Barn Lane that 
afternoon as we ran back and forth buying and con- 
suming each other’s merchandise. 

At length my stock of candy was nearly closed out, 
and my neighbor’s liquor exhausted, so business 
ceased. I closed up and sat down to count my 
profits. My gold dollar was expended, my candy 
and sugar were disposed of, and per € 07 itra I' had 
about two hundred old rusty pins — and the stomach 
ache. The pins were not now in use as money, and 
were worth in coin less than two cents. 


A MERCANTILE TRANSACTION. 


I pondered long and seriously over this result, for 
it was a serious matter ; and it was long before I 
could discover the cause of the collapse. Then I 
concluded that specie was the best basis for business, 
and that I had no special talents for trade. This 
may account for my childish prejudice in favor of 
gold and silver. 


THE CHRISTMAS MONKS. 


LL children have wondered unceasingly from 



^ their very first Christmas up to their very 
last Christmas, where the Christmas presents come 
from. It is very easy to say that Santa Claus 
brought them. All well regulated people know that, 
of course ; about the reindeer, and the sledge, and 
the pack crammed with toys, the chimney, and all 
the rest of it — that is all true, of course, and every- 
body knows about it ; but that is not the question 
which puzzles. What children want to know is, where 
do these Christmas presents come from in the first 
place ? Where does Santa Claus get them ? Well 
the answer to that is. In the garden of the Christmas 
Monks. This has not been known until very lately ; 
that is, it has not been known till very lately except 
in the immediate vicinity of the Christmas Monks. 
There, of course, it has been known for ages. It is 


THE CHRISTMAS MONKS. 


rather an out-of-the-way place ; and that accounts for 
our never hearing of it before. 

The Convent of the Christmas Monks is a most 
charmingly picturesque pile of old buildings; there 
are towers and turrets, and peaked roofs and arches, 
and everything which could possibly be thought of in 
the architectural line, to make a convent picturesque. 
It is built of graystone ; but it is only once in a while 
that you can see the graystone, for the walls are 
almost completely covered with mistletoe and ivy and 
evergreen. There are the most delicious little arched 
windows with diamond panes peeping out from the 
mistletoe and evergreen, and always at all times of 
the year, a little Christmas wreath of ivy and holly- 
berries is suspended in the centre of every window. 
Over all the doors, which are likewise arched, are 
Christmas garlands, and over the main entrance 
Merry Christmas in evergreen letters. 

The Christmas Monks are a jolly brethren ; the 
robes of their order are white, gilded with green gar- 
lands, and they never are seen out at any time of 
the year without Christmas wreaths on their heads. 
Every morning they file in a long procession into the 


THE CHRISTMAS MONKS. 


chapel, to sing a Christmas carol ; and every even- 
ing they ring a Christmas chime on the convent bells. 
They eat roast turkey and plum pudding and mince- 
pie for dinner all the year round; and always carry 
what is left in baskets trimmed with evergreen, to 
the poor people. There are always wax candles 
lighted and set in every window of the convent at 
nightfall ; and when the people in the country about 
get uncommonly blue and down-hearted, they always 
go for a cure to look at the Convent of the Christ- 
mas Monks after the candles are lighted and the 
chimes are ringing. It brings to mind things which 
never fail to cheer them. 

But the principal thing about the Convent of the 
Christmas Monks is the garden ; for that is where 
the Christmas presents grow. This garden extends 
over a large number of acres, and is divided into 
different departments, just as we divide our flower and 
vegetable gardens ; one bed for onions, one for cab- 
bages, and one for phlox, and one for verbenas, etc. 

Every spring the Christmas Monks go out to sow 
the Christmas-present seeds after they have ploughed 
the ground and made it all ready. 


THE CHRISTMAS MONKS. 


There is one enormous bed devoted to rocking- 
horses. The rocking-horse seed is curious enough ; 
just little bits of rocking-horses so small that they 
can only be seen through a very, very powerful 
microscope. The Monks drop these at quite a dis- 
tance from each other, so that they will not interfere 
while growing ; then they cover them up neatly with 
earth, and put up a sign-post with “ Rocking-horses 
on it in evergreen letters. Just so with the penny- 
trumpetseed, and the toy-furniture seed, the skate- 
seed, the sled-seed, and all the others. 

Perhaps the prettiest, and most interesting part of 
the garden, is that devoted to wax dolls. There are 
other beds for the commoner dolls — for the rag dolls, 
and the china dolls, and the rubber dolls, but of 
course wax dolls would look much handsomer grow- 
ing. Wax dolls have to be planted quite early in 
the season ; for they need a good start before the 
sun is very high. The seeds are the loveliest bits of 
microscopic dolls imaginable. The Monks sow them 
pretty close together, and they begin to come up 
by the middle of May. There is first just a little 
glimmer of gold, or flaxen, or black, or brown, as 


THE CHRISTMAS MONKS. 


the case may be, above the soil. Then the snowy 
foreheads appear, and the blue eyes, and black eyes, 
and, later on, all those enchanting little heads are 
out of the ground, and are nodding and winking and 
smiling to each other the whole extent of the field ; 
with their pinky cheeks and sparkling eyes and curly 
hair there is nothing so pretty as these little wax 
doll heads peeping out of the earth. Gradually, more 
and more of them come to light, and finally by 
Christmas they are all ready to gather. There they 
stand, swaying to and fro, and dancing lightly on 
their slender feet which are connected with the 
ground, each by a tiny green stem ; their dresses of 
pink, or blue, or white — for their dresses grow with 
them — flutter in the air. Just about the prettiest 
sight in the world, is the bed of wax dolls in the gar- 
den of the Christmas Monks at Christmas time. 

Of course ever since this convent and garden were 
established ( and that was so long ago that the wis- 
est man can find no books about it) their glories 
have attracted a vast deal of admiration and curiosity 
from the young people in the surrounding country; 
but as the garden is enclosed on all sides by an 








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THE CHRISTMAS MONKS. 


immensely thick and high hedge, which no boy could 
climb, or peep over, they could only judge of the gar- 
den by the fruits which were parcelled out to them on 
Christmas-day. 

You can judge, then, of the sensation among the 
young folks, and older ones, for that matter, when 
one evening there appeared hung upon a conspicuous 
place in the garden-hedge, a broad strip of white 
cloth trimmed with evergreen and printed with the 
following notice in evergreen letters : 

“ Wanted : — By the Christinas Monks, iwo good boys to assist 
in garden work. Applicants will be examined by Fathers 
Anselmus and Ambrose, in the convent refectory, on April loth.” 

This notice was hung out about five o’clock in the 
evening, some time in the early part of February. 
By noon, the street was so full of boys staring at it 
with their mouths wide open, so as to see better, that 
the king was obliged to send his bodyguard before 
him to clear the way with brooms, when he wanted to 
pass on his way from his chamber of state to his 
palace. 

There was not a boy in the country but looked 
upon this position as the height of human felicity. 


THE CHRISTMAS MONKS. 


To work all the year in that wonderful garden, and 
see those wonderful things growing! and without 
doubt any boy who worked there could have all the 
toys he wanted, just as a boy who works in a candy- 
shop always has all the candy he wants ! 

But the great difficulty, of course, was about the 
degree of goodness requisite to pass the examination. 
The boys in this country were no worse than the boys 
in other countries, but there were not many of them 
that would not have done a little differently if he 
had only known beforehand of the advertisement of 
the Christmas Monks. However, they made the 
most of the time remaining, and were so good all 
over the kingdom that a very millennium seemed 
dawning. The schoolteachers used their ferrules 
for fire wood, and the king ordered all the birch-trees 
cut down and exported, as he thought there would be 
no more call for them in his own realm. 

When the time for the examination drew near, 
there were two boys whom every one thought would 
obtain the situation, although some of the other boys 
had lingering hopes for themselves ; if only the Monks 
would examine them on the last six weeks, they 


THE CHRISTMAS MONKS.' 


thought they might pass. Still all the older people 
had decided in their minds that the Monks would 
choose these two boys. One was the Prince, the 
king’s oldest son; and the other was a poor boy 
named Peter. The Prince was no better than the 
other boys ; indeed, to tell the truth, he was not so 
good ; in fact was the biggest rogue in the whole 
country; but all the lords and the ladies, and all 
the people who admired the lords and ladies, said 
it was their solemn belief that the Prince was the 
best boy in the whole kingdom ; and they were 
prepared to give in their testimony, one and all, to 
that effect to the Christmas Monks. 

Peter was really and truly such a good boy that 
there was no excuse for saying he was not. His 
father and mother were poor people; and Peter 
worked every minute out of school hours, to help 
them along. Then he had a sweet little crippled 
sister whom he was never tired of caring for. Then, 
too, he contrived to find time to do lots of little kind- 
nesses for other people. He always studied his 
lessons faithfully, and never ran away from school. 
Peter was such a good boy, and so modest and 


THE CHRISTMAS MONKS. 


unsuspicious that he was good, that everybody loved 
him. He had not the least idea that he could get 
the place with the Christmas Monks, but the Prince 
was sure of it. 

When the examination day came all the boys from 
far and near, with their hair neatly brushed and parted, 
and dressed in their best clothes, flocked into the 
convent. Many of their relatives and friends went 
with them to witness the examination. 

The refectory of the convent where they assembled, 
was a very large hall with a delicious smell of roast 
turkey and plum pudding in it. All the little boys 
sniffed, and their mouths watered. 

The two fathers who were to examine the boys 
were perched up in a high pulpit so profusely 
trimmed with evergreen that it looked like a bird’s 
nest; they were remarkably pleasant-looking men, 
and their eyes twinkled merrily under their Christ- 
mas wreaths. Father Anselmus was a little the taller 
of the two, and Father Ambrose was a little the 
broader ; and that was about all the difference between 
them in looks. 

The little boys all stood up in a row, their friends 


THE CHRISTMAS MONKS. 


Stationed themselves in good places, and the examin- 
ation began. 

Then if one had been placed beside the entrance 
to the convent, he would have seen one after another, 
a crestfallen little boy with his arm lifted up and 
crooked, and his face hidden in it, come out and walk 
forlornly away. He had failed to pass. 

The two fathers found out that this boy had 
robbed bird’s nests, and this one stolen apples. 
And one after another they walked disconsolately 
away till there were only two boys left : the Prince 
and Peter. 

Now, your Highness,” said Father Anselmus, who 
always took the lead in the questions, “are you a 
goad boy ? ” 

“ O holy Father ! ” exclaimed all the people — 
there were a good many fine folks from the court 
present. “ He is such a good boy ! such a wonder- 
ful boy ! we never knew him to do a wrong thing 
in his sweet life.” 

“ I don’t suppose he ever robbed a bird’s nest ? ” 
said Father Ambrose a little doubtfully. 

“ No, no ! ” chorused the people. 


THE CHRISTMAS MONKS. 


“ Nor tormented a kitten V* 

“ No, no, no ! ” cried they all. 

At last everybody being so confident that there 
could be no reasonable fault found with the Prince, 
he was pronounced competent ‘to enter upon the 
Monks’ service. Peter they knew a great deal about 
before — indeed a glance at his face was enough to 
satisfy any one of his goodness ; for he did look 
more like one of the boy angels in the altar piece 
than anything else. So after a few questions, they 
accepted him also ; and the people went home and 
left the two boys with the Christmas Monks. 

The next morning Peter was obliged to lay aside 
his homespun coat, and the Prince his velvet tunic, 
and both were dressed in some little white robes with 
evergreen girdles like the Monks. Then the Prince 
was set to sewing Noah’s Ark seed, and Peter picture- 
book seed. Up and down they went scattering the 
seed. Peter sang a little psalm to himself, but the 
Prince grumbled because they had not given him 
gold-watch or gem seed to plant instead of the toy 
which he had outgrown long ago. By noon Peter 
had planted all his picture-books, and fastened up 


THE CHRISTMAS MONKS. 


the card to mark them on the pole ; but the Prince 
had dawdled so his work was not half done. 

“ We are going to have a trial with this boy,” said 
the Monks to each other ; “ we shall have to set 
him a penance at once, or we cannot manage him at 
all.” 

So the Prince had to go without his dinner, and 
kneel on dried peas in the chapel all the afternoon. 
The next day he finished his Noah’s Arks meekly; 
but the next day he rebelled again and had 'to go the 
whole length of the field where theyplanted jewsharps, 
on his knees. And so it was about every other day 
for the whole year. 

One of the brothers had to be set apart in a medi- 
tating cell to invent new penances ; for they had 
used up all on their list before the Prince had been 
with them three months. 

The Prince became dreadfully tired of his convent 
life, and if he could have brought it about would 
have run away. Peter, on the contrary, had never 
been so happy in his life. He worked like a bee, 
and the pleasure he took in seeing the lovely things 
he had planted come up, was unbounded, and the 


THE CHRISTMAS MONKS. 


Christmas carols and chimes delighted his soul. 
Then, too, he had never fared so well in his life. 
He could never remember the time before when he 
had been a whole week without being hungry. He 
sent his wages every month to his parents ; and he 
never ceased to wonder at the discontent of the 
Prince. 

They grow so slow,” the Prince would say, wrink- 
ling up his handsome forehead. “ I expected to 
have a bushelful of new toys every month ; and not 
one have I had yet. And these stingy old Monks 
say I can only have my usual Christmas share any- 
way, nor can I pick them out myself. I never saw 
such a stupid place to stay in in my life. I want to 
have my velvet tunic on and go home to the palace 
and ride on my white pony with the silver tail, and hear 
them all tell me how charming I am.” Then the 
Prince would crook his arm and put his head on it 
and cry. 

Peter pitied him, and tried to comfort him, but it 
was not of much use, for the Prince got angry because 
he was not disconted as well as himself. 

Two weeks before Christmas everything in the 


"THE CHRISTMAS MONKS. 


garden was nearly ready to be picked. Some few 
things needed a little more December sun, but every- 
thing looked perfect. Some of the Jack-in-the-boxes 
would not pop out quite quick enough, and some of 
the jumping-jacks were hardly as limber as they 
might be as yet; that was all. As it was so near 
Christmas the Monks were engaged in their holy 
exercises in the chapel for the greater part of the 
time, and only went over the garden once a day to 
see if everything was all right. 

The Prince and Peter were obliged to be there all 
the time. There was plenty of work for them to do ; 
for once in a while something would blow over, and 
then there were the penny-trumpets to keep in tune ; 
and that was a vast sight of work. 

One morning the Prince was at one end of the 
garden straightening up some wooden soldiers 
which had toppled over, and Peter was in the wax 
doll bed dusting the dolls. ^ All of a sudden he 
heard a sweet little voice : “ O, Peter ! ” He 

thought at first one of the dolls was talking, but 
they could not say anything but papa and mamma ; 
and had the merest apologies for voices anyway. 


THE CHRISTMAS MONKS. 

\ 

“ Here I am, Peter ! ” and there was a little pull 
at his sleeve. There was his little sister. She 
was not any taller than the dolls around her, 
and looked uncommonly like the prettiest, pinkest- 
cheeked, yellowest-haired ones; so it was no won- 
der that Peter did not see her at first. She stood 
there poising herself on her crutches, poor little 
thing, and smiling lovingly up at Peter. 

“Oh, you darling!” cried Peter, catching her up 
in his arms. “ How did you get in here ? ” 

“ I stole in behind one of the Monks,” said she. 
“I saw him going up the street past our house, and I 
ran out and kept behind him all the way. When he 
opened the gate I whisked in too, and then I fol- 
lowed him into the garden. I’ve been here with the 
dollies ever since.” 

“ Well,” said poor Peter, “ I don’t see what I am 
going to do with you, now 5'Ou are here. I can’t 
let you out again ; and I don’t know what the Monks 
will say.” 

“ Oh, I know ! ” cried the little girl gayly ; “ I 
know. I’ll stay out here in the garden. I can 
sleep in one of those beautiful dolls’ cradles over 


THE CHRISTMAS MONKS. 


there ; and you can bring me something to eat.” 

“ But the Monks come out every morning to 
look over the garden, and they’ll be sure to find 
you,” said her brother, anxiously. 

“ No, ril hide ! O Peter, here is a place where 
there isn’t any doll ! ” 

“Yes ; that doll didn’t come up.” 

“Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do! I’ll just stand 
here in this place where the doll didn’t come up, 
and nobody can tell the difference.” 

“ Well, I don’t know but you can do that,” said 
Peter, although he was still ill at ease. He was so 
good a boy he was very much afraid of doing wrong, 
and offending his kind friends the Monks ; at the 
same time he could not help being glad to see 
his dear little sister. 

He smuggled some food out to her, and she 
played merrily about him all day ; and at night he 
tucked her into one of the dolls’ cradles with lace 
pillows and quilt of rose-colored silk. 

The next morning when the Monks were going 
the rounds, the father who inspected the wax doll 
bed, was a bit nearsighted, and he never noticed 


THE CHRISTMAS MONKS. 



sister, who swung herself on her crutches, and looked 
just as much like a wax doll as she possibly could. 


THE CHRISTxMAS MONKS. 


So the two were delighted with the success of their 
plan. 

They went on thus for a few days, and Peter could 
not help being happy with his darling little sister, 
although at the same time he could not help worry- 
ing for fear he was doing wrong. 

Something else happened now, which made him 
worry still more ; the Prince ran away. He had been 
watching for a long time for an opportunity to possess 
himself of a certain long ladder made of twisted 
evergreen ropes, which the Monks kept locked up 
in the toolhouse. Lately, by some oversight, the 
toolhouse had been left unlocked one day, and the 
Prince got the ladder. It was the latter part of the 
afternoon, and the Christmas Monks were all in the 
chapel practising Christmas carols. The Prince 
found a very large hamper, and picked as many 
Christmas presents for himself as he could stuff into 
it ; then he put the ladder against the high gate in 
front of the convent, and climbed up, dragging the 
hamper after him. When the Prince had reached 
the top of the gate, which was quite broad, he sat 
down to rest for a moment before pulling the 


THE CHRISTMAS MONKS. 


ladder up so as to drop it on the other side. 

He gave his feet a little triumphant kick as he 
looked back at his prison, and down slid the ever- 
green ladder ! The Prince lost his balance, and 
would inevitably have broken his neck if he had not 
clung desperately to the hamper which hung over on 
the convent side of the fence ; and as it was just 
the same weight as the Prince, it kept him suspended 
on the other. 

He screamed with all the force of his royal lungs ; 
was heard by a party of noblemen who were gallop- 
ing up the street ; was rescued, and carried in state 
to the palace. But he was obliged to drop the ham- 
per of presents, for with it all the ingenuity of the 
noblemen could not rescue him as speedily as it was 
necessary they should. 

When the good Monks discovered the escape of 
the Prince they were greatly grieved, for they had 
tried their best to do well by him ; and poor Peter 
could with difficulty be comforted. He had been 
very fond of the Prince, although the latter had done 
little except torment him for the whole year ; but 
Peter had a way of being fond of folks. 


THE CHRISTMAS MONKS. 


A few days after the Prince ran away, and the day 
before the one on which the Christmas presents were 
to be gathered, the nearsighted father went out into 
the wax doll field again ; but this time he had his 
spectacles on, and could see just as well as any one, 
and even a little better. Peter’s little sister was 
swinging herself on her crutches, in the place where 
the wax doll did not come up, tipping her little face 
up, and smiling just like the dolls around her. 

“ Why, what is this ! ” said the father. “ Hoc 
credam / I thought that wax doll did not come up. 
Can my eyes deceive me ? non verum est ! There is a 
doll there — and what a doll ! on crutches, and in 
poor, homely gear ! ” 

Then the ' nearsighted father put out his hand 
toward Peter’s little sister. She jumped — she could 
not help it, and the holy father jumped too; the 
Christmas wreath actually tumbled off his head. 

“ It is a miracle ! ” exclaimed he when he could 
speak ; “ the little girl is alive ! parra puella viva est. 
I will pick her and take her to the brethren, and we 
will pay her the honors she is entitled to.” 

Then the good father put on his Christmas wreath, 


THE CHRISTMAS MONKS. 


for he dared not venture before his abbot without it^ 
picked up Peter’s little sister, who was trembling in 
all her little bones, and carried her into the chapel, 
where the Monks were just assembling to sing 
another carol. He went right up to the Christmas 
abbot, who was seated in a splendid chair, and 
looked like a king. 

“ Most holy abbot,” said the nearsighted father, 
holding out Peters little sister, “ behold a miracle, 
vide miraculum ! Thou wilt remember that there 
was one wax doll planted which did not come up. 
Behold, in her place I have found this doll on 
crutches, which is — alive ! ” 

“Let me see her!” said the abbot; and all the 
other Monks crowded around, opening their mouths 
just like the little boys around the notice, in order to 
see better. 

“ Verum est” said the abbot. “ It is verily a 
miracle.” 

“Rather a lame miracle,” said the brother who 
had charge of the funny picture-books and the toy 
monkeys. These much-prized boys threw his 
mind off its level of sobriety, and he was apt 


THE CHRISTMAS MONKS. 

to make frivolous speeches unbecoming a monk. 

The abbot gave him a reproving glance, and the 
brother, who was the leach of the convent, came 
forward. “ Let me look at the miracle, most holy 
abbot,’' said he. He took up Peter’s sister, and looked 
carefully at the small, twisted ankle. “ I think I can 
cure this with my herbs and simples,” said he. 

“But I don’t know,” said the abbot doubtfully. 
“ 1 never heard of curing a miracle.” 

“ If it is not lawful, my humble power will not 
suffice to cure it,” said the father who was the leach. 

“ True,” said the abbot; “take her, then, and exer- 
cise thy healing art upon her, and we will go on with 
our Christmas devotions, for which we should now 
feel all the more zeal.” 

So the father took away Peter’s little sister, who 
was still too frightened to speak. 

The Christmas Monk was a wonderful doctor, for 
by Christmas eve the little girl was completely 
cured of her lameness. This may seem incredible, 
but it was owing in great part to the herbs and sim- 
ples, which are of a species that our doctors have 
no knowledge of; and also to a wonderful lotion 


THE CHRISTMAS MONKS. 


which has never been advertised on our fences. 

Peter of course heard the talk about the miracle, 
and knew at once what it meant. He was almost 



heartbroken to think he was deceiving the Monks so, 
but at the same time he did not dare to confess the 
truth for fear they would put a penance upon his 


THE CHRISTMAS MONKS. 


sister, and he could not bear to think of her having 
to kneel upon dried peas. 

He worked hard picking Christmas presents, and 
hid his unhappiness as best he could. On Christmas 
eve he was called into the chapel. The Christmas 
Monks were all assembled there. The walls were 
covered with green garlands and boughs and spra3^s 
of holly berries, and branches of wax lights were 
gleaming brightly amongst them. The altar and the 
picture of the Blessed Child behind it were so bright 
as to almost dazzle one ; and right up in the midst 
of it, in a lovely white dress, all wreaths and jewels, 
in a little chair with a canopy woven of green branches 
over it, sat Peter’s little sister. 

And there were all the Christmas Monks in their 
white robes and wreaths, going up in a long proces- 
sion, with their hands full of the very showiest 
Christmas presents to offer them to her ! 

But when they reached her and held out the lovely 
presents — the first was an enchanting wax doll, 
the biggest beauty in the whole garden — instead of 
reaching out her hands for them, she just drew back, 
and said in her little sweet, piping voice : “ Please, 


THE CHRISTMAS MONKS. 


I ain’t a millacle, I’m only Peter’s little sister.” 

“ Peter ? ” said the abbot ; “ the Peter who works 
in our garden ? ” 

“ Yes,” said the little sister. 

Now here was a fine opportunity for a whole con- 
vent full of monks to look foolish — filing up in 
procession with their hands full of gifts to offer to a 
miracle, and finding there was no miracle, but only 
Peter’s little sister. 

But the abbot of the Christmas Monks liad always 
maintained that there were two ways of looking at 
all things; if any object was not what you wanted it 
to be in one light, that there was another light in 
which it would be sure to meet your views. 

So now he brought this philosophy to bear. 

“This little girl did not come up in the place of 
the wax doll, and she is not a miracle in that light,” 
said he ; “ but look at her in another light and she is 
a miracle — do you not see? ” 

They all looked at her, the darling little girl, the 
very meaning and sweetness of all Christmas in her 
innocent face. 

“Yes,” said all the Christmas Monks, “she is a 


THE CHRISTMAS MONKS. 


miracle.” And they all laid their beautiful Christmas 
presents down before her. 

Peter was so delighted he hardly knew himself; 
and, oh ! the joy there was when he led his little sis- 
ter home on Christmas-day, and showed all the 
wonderful presents. 

The Christmas Monks always retained Peter in 
their employ — in fact he is in their employ to this 
day. And his parents, and his little sister who was 
entirely cured of her lameness, have never wanted for 
anything. 

As for the Prince, the courtiers were never tired of 
discussing and admiring his wonderful knowledge of 
physics which led to his adjusting the weight of the 
hamper of Christmas presents to his own so nicely 
that he could not fall. The Prince liked the talk 
and the admiration well enough, but he could not 
help, also, being a little glum ; for he got no Christmas 
presents that year. 


HOW SIN HOP WENT 
ASHORE. 


OTHER, may I go 
ashore ? ” 

“ Do what ?” said Mrs. 
Sin, looking up from the 
rice which she was wash- 
ing for dinner. 

Now Mrs. Sin had 
heard what Hop had said, but she was astonished and 
almost doubted her ears. Go ashore, indeed ! Why, 
Hop’s father had not once put his foot on shore until he 
was fifteen years old ; and here was Hop not much 
more than half that age daring to want to do so. 
Well, she would put that idea out of his head at 
once. 

“ Do you see this ? ” she said reaching over to 



HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 


the side of the boat and catching up a piece of rattan 
made of several strands very ingeniously woven into 
a broad shovel shape at one end. 

Hop saw it and knew without any explanation 
what it was for. He said he saw it. 

“ Well/’ said his mother, “ don’t ever ask me to 
let you go ashore again. This boat was good enough 
for your father, and it shall be good enough for you 
too.” 

Hop knew it would be useless to urge his request 
any farther, and besides, as persistence might, bring 
about an unpleasant encounter with the rattan, he 
said no more. He was not prepared to be good- 
tempered, however, and therefore sat himself down 
on the side of the boat to indulge in the luxury of 
a sulk. 

He had made up his mind that he would not be 
happy, and though the chips floated temptingly near 
his feet as he dangled them in the water, he would 
not try to catch any of them between his toes. No, 
indeed, he just would not have any fun. And his 
chubby round face looked as sullen as such a face 
could very well look. 


HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 


He was nine years old and had lived all those 
years on the water without once going ashore. The 
boat which was his home, and on which he had been 
born, was a little thing not more than twenty feet 
long and about four feet wide. One third of ' its 
length from the bow it was decked over with mova- 
ble boards, and in the little hold thus made, clothing 
and provisions were kept. 

Midway between bow and stern was a sort of 
cabin, covered overhead by a roof made of matting, 
and shaped somewhat like a hogshead cut in half 
lengthwise and mounted on four short poles. It 
was open in front and behind, but was covered on 
the sides by matting similar to that on the top. 
There was a false roof besides, that could be slid 
over the front opening in wet weather. In dry 
weather it was kept on the roof, which it fitted 
closely. 

The cabin was used as a bedroom, nursery, pas- 
senger saloon, parlor, everything in fact except a 
kitchen, which was in a little compartment just 
behind the cabin. Between the stern and the 
kitchen the boat was decked over again. It was on 


HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 


this little after-deck that Hop stood and steered the 
boat, or sampan, as it is called in Canton, while his 
mother sat on a low stool on the forward deck and 
pulled one oar. 

It seems very odd that they should be able to pass 
their lives in such close quarters ; but there are hun- 
dreds of thousands of person's in China who know 
no other kind of existence and would be absolutely 
unhappy if forced to live on land. 

Nobody knows who these Tauka, or water people,, 
are. The Chinese look upon them with the utmost 
scorn and contempt, and forbid them by law to marry 
with the land people. Indeed it is not so many 
years ago that the laws forbade them going ashore 
on pain of death. . That law was repealed by one of 
the Emperors, but habit is so strong that the boat 
people very seldom go ashore even now when they 
may. They go so far as to take pride in staying in 
their boats ; and this is why Mrs. Sin was so indig- 
nant with Hop. 

It was the easier to stay in their boats that they 
had no real necessity for going ashore. In the river 
near Canton, where Hop and his mother lived, there 


HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 


were >some fifty thousand boats of all sizes, and on 
them lived about two hundred thousand persons. It 
was like a floating city, and had its floating stores. 
Whatever the boat people might need was sold in 
boats. 

Of course there was a Mr. Sin, or Sin Tsing, as his 
name was. He was a sailor on a large sea-going 
junk, and was away from home most of the time ; 
but it must not be supposed that while he was away 
his wife and son did nothing but keep the sampan 
clean. 

They had a station at one of the principal landing- 
places on the river, and waited for passengers who 
might want to be taken across or up or down the 
river. They were in fact the gondolas of China. 
The fare they charged was only a few cash, but it 
does not cost much to live in China, and Hop and 
his mother usually earned enough to buy all the rice 
and salt fish they needed. 

Hop knew it was not customary for Tauka boys to 
go on shore ; but so do boys who have comfortable 
homes on land, know that it is not customary for 
land boys to go to sea, and yet they often will have 


HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 


what their mothers call a crazy desire to do it. Just 
so Hop had set his heart on going ashore. Yu 
Cheong, a young acquaintance of his, had been on 
shore for nearly a whole afternoon one day, and 
when he returned had told Hop such wonderful tale^ 
that he had for a long time secretly been longing to 
make a similar excursion. 

He could see a great deal of land sights as he sat 
there paddling his little brown feet in the water, but 
he could not see enough to satisfy him. In fact, it 
was what he could not see that most interested him. 

For example : their landing was exactly in front of 
a large Buddhist temple. He could not see inside 
of it, because a high wall ran. like a screen in front 
of the open gateway inside of the courtyard. He 
could see the priests with their shaven heads and 
long yellow robes, going in and out, and he knew 
from the crowds of richly dressed men and women 
that went there, that there must be a great deal going 
on behind that provoking wall. Then, too, he had 
heard that there were sacred swine kept by the 
priests, and he did want to see them. 

The landing-place was in a very busy spot, and 


HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 


Hop might have been satisfied with what he saw 
there, and generally he was, but now he would not 
be. A dentist with a string of teeth hung around 
his neck, and his instruments and medicines in a 
^bundle over his shoulder, passed across the open 
space. Hop took no interest in him until he had 
disappeared behind a huge banyan-tree that grew on 
one side of the landing. But when he could no 
longer see him, he wondered where he was, and what 
he was doing. 

In truth it was like looking at a panorama to sit as 
Hop did on the side of his boat, and see the moving 
crowds on the landing-place. 

There goes a barber with his stool and basin hang- 
ing over his shoulder on a piece of bamboo, looking 
for a customer. There is a man with pickled olives 
crying his wares ; there a cobbler with his chair and 
tools, going along looking for shoes to mend, instead 
of waiting for the shoes to come to him ; here a 
mender of broken crockery ; there a tinsmith ; there 
a pedler of sugar-cane ; there a druggist shouting 
out what fine medicines he has for sale. 

'All these and many more besides kept passing 


WHAT LITTLE SIN HOP SAW FROM THE SAMPAN 








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HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 


before Hop only to disappear from his disappointed 
gaze behind the banyan-tree. How he did hate that 
tree. It was worse than the wall in front of the 
temple. 

Here comes a mandarin’s wife in a handsome boat. 
How the small sampans crowd out of the way ! Hop 
forgets to be sulky now, for as he sits he can see the 
great lady all gorgeous in green and blue and red 
and gold as she hobbles on her tiny feet from the 
boat to the magnificent blue sedan-chair that waits 
for her. She is supported by two maids, and seems 
very grand and helpless to active little Hop. 

She goes into the temple yard, disappearing behind 
the wall that Hop dislikes so much ; but Hop has lost 
all his ill temper now, and is only wondering in a 
dreamy way how it would be if he and his mother 
could live in such a magnificent boat as that in which 
the lady came. 

He does not dream long, however, for Yu Cheong calls 
out to him to go in swimming. In they go, and swim 
and splash about as boys do in every part of the 
world. Suddenly they scramble upon the deck of a 
sampan, regardless of clothes, and all excitement as a 


HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 


party of soldiers hurry across the landing-place whip- 
ping a thief. 

The thief’s back is bare, his ears pierced with two 
small red flags, and his hands tied. One soldier 
strides in front beating a gong while a soldier behind 
the thief brings his rattan down on the latter’s back 
every time the gong is struck. Another soldier car- 
ries a board upon which is written the story of the 
culprit’s crime. 

It is over in a minute, and Hop stands staring into 
the banyan-tree behind which the soldiers and a 
crowd of hooting boys have disappeared. In another 
moment two small boys are scuffling — the sampan 
rocks, splash ! they both go into the water. 

There were no passengers that day, but with swim- 
ming, eating, and washing the sampan. Hop made the 
day pass so pleasantly that bed-time came, as it usu- 
ally does with healthy boys, before he was ready for 
it, though he was tired enough not to object to it. 

Before going to bed he took a look at the anchor 
to see that it was secure. The anchor was nothing 
more than a bamboo pole run through a rattan loop 
at the bow of the boat, and pushed deep into the mud. 


HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 

Hop’s bed was the floor of the cabin ; his pillow was 
a smooth piece of wood a little larger than the big 
end of a base-ball bat, and which he put under his 
neck instead of under his head. It was not much of 
a bed, and it was a still worse pillow, but they were 
the best he had ever had, and he was perfectly satis- 
fied with them. 

After Hop had gone to sleep, his mother took her 
little bench and sat down with her chin in her hands 
and listened to the music from the flower-boats or 
floating saloons across the river, where gay parties of 
ladies and gentlemen were spending the evening. 

In the day-time the river is full of activity, and 
seems like a busy, bustling street ; but at night every- 
thing on shore is hushed and the noise and life on 
the river seem increased fourfold. The flower-boats 
and hotel-boats which are dull and quiet during the 
day, wake into a blaze of life and splendor at night, 
making the river-banks look like one long carnival 
scene. 

Between the two banks of the river the sampans, 
each with a gay-colored lantern, ply backward and 
forward incessantly. Fleets of big junks lie anchored 


HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. , 

in a long line in mid-stream, and, as they are all full 
of sailors, a murmur of voices continually comes from 
them. - r 

Besides these passenger boats from various towns 
along the river are continually arriving : and as each 
one comes in it is beset by sampans eager to secure 
customers ; for the city gates are shut and the new 
arrivals must go to the hotel-boats for the night. 

To a. stranger a night scene on the Pearl River at^ 
Canton is full of interest. To the blaze of lights 
along the banks, and the myriads of moving lights 
on the water, must be added a confused mingling of 
music from guitar, fiddle and flute, the shouting 'of 
boatmen passing each other, the babel of voices 
around the passenger boats, the hoarse murmur from 
the junks and the merry laughter and high falsetto 
singing of the gay revellers on the flower-boats. 

'Mrs. Sin, however, was accustomed to all this, 
and therefore took no more notice of it than a stage 
driver might of the hubbub in Broadway. She was 
thinking of her husband who had gone to Swatow 
and was due back at almost any time now. Thinking 
of her husband made her wonder what sort of weather 


HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 


he was going to have if he should happen to be near 
home. 

She looked up at the sky and noticed that it was 
unusually black and lowering. She knew there was 
going to be a storm with plenty of both wind and 
rain, and therefore rose to pull the false roof over the 
front of the cabin where Hop lay asleep. Seeing 
her neighbors similarly employed, she called out to 
one of them that a bad night was promised. 

“ Ay, indeed,” answered an old grandfather whose 
days of active usefulness were over, but who had 
made many a long voyage in his day and was sup- 
posed to know all signs, “it will be a bad night. Ay, 
ay ! look at the junks,- they know what that black sky 
means this time of year. It’s a big wind coming 
sure enough — a big wind ; so make all fast if you 
want to see the temple in the morning.” 

All eyes w’ere on the big junks in a moment. 
Why! what are they doing? Taking up their 
anchors? Going to move? Yes, yes, and not 
leisurely either. Hark! how the captain’s hurrying 
their men, each trying to be the first to take up a 
safe position in which to ride out the storm. Those 


HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 


old sailors have seen such inky skies before and 
know what danger lies behind them. 

And the flower-boats and the hotel-boats that have 
not lifted anchor for months or years, maybe, they 
too have taken the alarm. The merry parties are 
hastily breaking up — lights go out, sampans are 
hurrying and scurrying hither and thither, working 
hard to land their passengers so that they may 
make sure of a safe place for the night. The air 
is filled with shouts and yells, and the cry of 
“ta-fung, ta-fung,” or big wind, is heard on all 
sides. 

Mrs. Sin had never seen a typhoon, but she had 
heard enough to know that the danger could not be 
exaggerated. She therefore hastened to find a more 
secure position, and pushed so far in shore as to 
ground her sampan on the soft muddy bank. At 
the moment she did so a richly-dressed man came 
hurrying down the steps of the landing-place, and 
called for a sampan. 

No answer. All were too busy preparing for the 
storm. ^Again he called in a still louder voice, 
“ Sampan ! sampan ! ’’ 


HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 

This time some one answered, “No sampan to- 
night ; the ta-fung is coming.” 

“ But I must go home to my wife and children. 
One hundred cash for a sampan.” 

It was a magnificent offer, but the old men only 
shook their heads, while the women muttered, 
“ Sorry for the little ones, but it is too risky.” 

“What do you fear.?” shouted the man when he 
saw that his offer had not produced the effect he 
wished. “ The ta-fung will not be on for two hours 
yet. Besides you can get good shelter on the other 
side. Come, now, one hundred and fifty cash. 
That’s more than you will earn in two weeks.” 

Mrs. Sin had listened to all the stranger had said, 
and had found his offer sorely tempting. One hun- 
dred cash! It was enough to keep her for a long 
time ; but then she might not get into shelter again. 
One hundred and fifty cash 1 Pshaw ! she could find 
a good place, no doubt. 

“ I’ll do it for two hundred.” It was out before 
she could repress it. 

“ All right ; be quick now,” said the stranger, glad 
to get across the river at any price. 


HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 


The money was paid first and carefully counted by 
Mrs. Sin who had roused Hop out of his comfortable 
sleep to take the stern oar. The boat people said 
she was crazy to venture out, but she secretly believed 
it was more envy at her fortune in getting such a 
good “ fare ” than real solicitude. 

By this time the river presented a strange specta- 
cle, and one that struck terror to Mrs. Sin’s heart, 
when she first realized it after making her way out of 
the mass of boats that were crowded in near the 
sheltered landing-place. 

Not a boat was to be seen out on the br6ad bosom 
of the river. Junks, flower-boats, hotel-boats, sam- 
pans, all gone. Disappeared as if swallowed up. 
She had never known before what a large river it was. 
It had always been covered with boats. It had been 
alive with her friends. In truth she had never 
really seen one hundred feet of her own river clear 
before. 

It was strange to her now, and seemed to run 
with fierce swiftness. Another thing that troubled 
her was, that although the sky was black as jet, yet 
she could see with unusual distinctness. It did not 


HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 


seem natural; she was frightened, and would have 
given up now, only that she had pushed out into the 
stream, and she knew that her aquaintances would 
laugh at her if she put back. 

Hop was frightened too. He seemed to have 
awakened in a strange land. He did not speak, how^ 
ever, but worked his oar manfully, while his mother 
pulled as she had seldom pulled before. She prom- 
ised herself not to be so greedy another time as to 
give up safety for a little money. It seemed to her 
as if she would never reach the other side. It was 
reached at last, however, and the passenger put 
ashore. 

Mrs. Sin now looked about for shelter. Where 
she had landed was too exposed, and not a boat had 
ventured to remain there. She rowed to a small 
canal near at hand. It was full. She tried a small 
inlet near some warehouses. Crowded full. 

Alas ! what should she do. The canals were full ; 
there was no room anywhere. She was away from her 
friends. The black sky was beginning to skurry along 
as if chased 'by a hurricane, at the same time closing 
down toward the water. Heaven and earth seemed 


HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 


about to meet. She could not stay where she was. 
There was but one thing to do — try to regain her 
own landing-place, and hang on to the mass of sam- 
pans crowded in there. 

She did not waste time thinking of it, but started 
at once. Coming over she had pulled hard for 
safety ; now she felt that it was life she was pulling 
for. It seemed to her that the wind had gathered 
and was only waiting to get her in a convenient spot 
to break upon her. There was no air — the clouds 
seemed to crush her. 

At last she reached the landing-place. It was 
only left for her to fasten the sampan as firmly as 
possible to one of the boats on the outside edge of 
the huddled mass. Having taken every precaution to 
ensure safety, she bade Hop go to sleep, and then 
sat down to wait with nervous dread the coming of 
the storm. Hop did not dare to disobey his mother 
and therefore laid down. He felt too frightened to 
sleep at once, however, for he had caught the words 
“ ta-fung,” and knew from the stories he had heard 
from old men that there was great danger close at 
hand. 


HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 


He saw, too, that his mother was terribly frightened, 
and that alone would have been enough to arouse all 
his fears. Besides which the lonely appearance of 
the river that he had last seen full of life and 
gayety, filled his little heart with foreboding. He 
lay on his back wondering what was going to happen, 
and whatever it was, how soon it would come ; but 
at last he could not keep awake any longer and his 
heavy eyelids dropped down over his bright black 
eyes. 

How long he slept he did not know. It seemed 
to him that he had only closed his eyes for a moment 
when he was awakened by the boat tilting so that his 
head came with a bang against the side. Then he 
could hear indistinctly, shouts of “ ta-fung, ta-fung ! 
here it is ! ” 

The sampan rocked and scraped against the next 
boat, and Hop could hear his mother’s voice as she 
called out to her neighbor to lash the bamboo-pole 
tighter across her deck. 

In a short time the wind went down somewhat and 
rain came ; and Hop thought to himself his people 
had been very much frightened about a little wind. 


HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 


For his part he rather liked it He was nicely 
sheltered by the false roof and enjoyed hearing the 
rain patter down on it. He wondered how it looked 
outside, and peeped out by pushing the roof a little. 
It was black — so black that he could not even see 
the water, and not a light was visible. 

He cuddled down in one corner of the boat and 
w^as composing himself to sleep again, when all of a 
sudden the wind returned with terrific fury and 
seemed to be full of moaning, shrieking voices. The 
little sampan rolled and crowded against the others ; 
the false roof, though well fastened, banged against the 
deck as if mad to tear itself loose. The cries of the 
boat people filled the air ; great sheets of water broke 
over the top and sides of the boat. 

Hop was frightened in good earnest now and called 
for his mother. She could not have gone to him had 
she heard him, for she was clinging to a rope at the 
bow', fearing at every moment to be carried away. 

Once more the wind subsided as if to take breath 
and gather more strength, for in a moment it came 
again with redoubled force. Bang-bang, bang-bang, 
went the false roof, and then as if torn by an hundred 


HOW .SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 


hands, it was wrenched from its fastenings and 
whirled away in the air as if it had been a leaf. 

Little Hop was numb with terror. He crouched 
close in his corner drenched with the water that'con- 
tinually broke over the sampan. He looked for his 
mother but could not see her — he could not see his 
own hand. He would have cried out in his terror 
when he felt somebody tumble into the little place 
where he lay and knew it must be his mother. He 
tried to speak to her, but could not tell if he made a 
noise or not. 

The sampan was rocking and tossing like a chip ; 
water was rapidly filling the open space where Hop 
and his mother were, and heavy substances were 
continually falling on the roof and deck. Once one 
of these objects struck near Hop and was shattered 
into fragments. He mechanically took a piece in his 
hand. It was smooth and hard with a curved surface. 
Hop knew it for a piece of tile. He understood then 
what those falling substances were. The wind was 
tearing the tiles from the house-tops, just as it had 
torn their false roof off. 

No words can describe the terrors of the few hours 


HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 


that passed while Hop and his mother crouched in 
their sampan waiting for the end which they could do 
nothing to avert. Poor Mrs. Sin ! what were her 
feelings when she thought ( and she did little else ) 
that but for her greed for money her boy and herself 
might now be safe. 

It seemed as if the wind could not blow harder, 
and she hoped that the rope with which she had 
lashed her sampan to the one next to it would hold 
till morning. She knew, however, that it must be 
wearing under the fearful strain that was on It, and 
she feared for the worst. 

The human mind could hardly conceive of a more 
terrible wind than was then blowing; a wind that 
carried heavy tiles about as if they had been feath- 
ers ; a wind that had almost carried Mrs. Sin away 
before she sought shelter with Hop in the little hold 
of the sampan. But Mrs. Sin had yet to learn what 
a typhoon really was. 

It was shortly after midnight when the real strength 
of the typhoon reached them. It had been blowing 
almost steadily before, and they had not felt its full 
force in the sheltered spot where they were lying. 


HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 


But now it came with a savage fury accompanied by 
shrieks and howls and yells that seemed almost 
human. 

It came first on this side and seemed about to 
dash the sturdy little boat to splinters, when with a 
sudden turn it was on the other side, tearing and 
wrenching the planks of the boat till every seam 
started. Then it came behind, then in front, then 
on top, all the time carrying off masses of water, 
huge sticks, stones, tiles, shutters, and almost every 
conceivable thing, only to dash them with fiendish 
glee, as it seemed, upon the hapless boats crowded 
together in abject fe.ar of the terrible wind dragon 
w'ho they fancied had come in his anger to destroy 
them. 

It was a wonder that the fastenings that held Mrs. 
Sin’s sampan to the other boats had held for so long 
time, and it was impossible that they could last any 
longer after the typhoon had fairly struck the boat. 
They held for a quarter of an hour and then snapped 
like rotten thread. 

What would become of them now ! Mrs. Sin 
knew what had happened. She had feared it all 


HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 


along, and when she felt the frail boat careen as if 
it were about to turn bottom up, she gave frightened 
little Hop what she thought would be a last hug, and 
then waited with anguish for the end she was sure 
would 'now soon come. 

But the end was not yet. The boat righted and 
was carried like an arrow far out into the boiling, 
surging stream. First this way and then that it 
plunged ; now tearing over the angry waves, scarcely 
touching them, now lying half submerged in the 
seething water that seemed to roar sullenly for the 
victims clinging so desperately to life. 

At one time it seemed as if the roof that had so 
kindly sheltered them was going to be their destruc- 
tion. It was a good mark for the wind which had 
many times tried to carry it away, but without suc- 
cess; for it was very firmly fastened. But when at, 
last the sampan was out in the stream at the full 
mercy of the wind, the roof could no longer stay. 
The struggle was short but fierce. The wind fairly 
screamed as it shook and tore the tough structure 
which held so firmly that when one side was torn 
loose the other still held fast and hanging over the 




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THE SAMPAN WAS CARRIED ALONG WITH THE SPEED OF LIGHTNING, 


HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 


side nearly dragged them down. At last, however, it 
was torn away, and the poor battered little shell lay 
all exposed to the worst that could come. 

How it lived through that fearful night the two 
occupants could never tell. They could have seen 
nothing even had they dared raise their heads to 
look over the side, but this neither of them thought 
of doing. Fear had stupefied them both, and the 
instinct of self-preservation alone made them cling 
to the sides with all the strength they possessed. 

At last the shifting of the wind seemed to have 
ceased, and only a steady wind blew. It was of ter- 
rific force still, and would have seemed a fearful gale 
at any other time, but then it was peaceful and quiet 
by comparison with what had preceded it. 

It was some time before the gray dawn came, and 
let Mrs. Sin see that her sampan was being carried 
with the speed of lightning by both current and 
wind. Where she was she could not tell, for in the 
dim light nothing but water could be seen. She felt 
that she was out of danger, however, and in being 
sure of life she forgot all minor ills. 

Little by little the daylight came. It brought no 


HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 


knowledge to her, however, for still she could see 
only water on every side. The current was very 
swift, and the river swollen and yellow with mud. 
Where they were, or how far, or in what direction 
from Canton, Mrs. Sin could not form any idea. 

It was so desolate and lonely, with neither boat 
nor land in sight, that had not the terrors of the night 
blunted their sensibilities the two poor creatures 
would have given way to despair. As it was they set 
themselves to bailing out the sampan, and when that 
was done took out some cold boiled rice and fish, 
and ate it with appetites sharpened by the fatigue 
and exposure through which they had passed. 

Having put the boat to rights as well as was pos- 
sible under the circumstances, they wrung out their 
wet clothes, and sat down to wait patiently for a 
glimpse of land, intending to pull the boat in that 
direction, for fortunately both oars had been saved. 
They did not have to -wait more than an hour when 
they noticed that the current had almost subsided ; 
or more properly that a strong eddy had swept them 
into almost quiet water. 

At the same time Hop thought he spied some trees 


HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 


off in the distance. His mother looked, and sure 
enough there were the tops of some bamboos waving 
above the wide waste of water. She immediately 
took her oar, and Hop his, and in a short time they 
had approached near enough to see that the bamboos 
were a submerged grove. 

The water was covered with floating wood and 
broken reeds, and it was evident to Mrs. Sin that the 
sampan was now floating over what had been a vil- 
lage the inhabitants of which had been swallowed up 
in the devouring flood caused by the typhoon. She 
shook her head sadly, and was fervently thankful that 
she and Hop had been spared. She pulled the sampan 
a long distance before she found land. It was a huge 
grave mound built in memory of some mandarin. It 
now barely lifted its head above the surrounding water, 
a fitting witnessof the scene of death and desolation. 

Here Mrs. Sin grounded her sampan and here — 
what was it Hop had wanted to do yesterday morn- 
ing ? Go ashore ? Well, here Hop went ashore for 
the first time in his life. It was not such a going 
ashore as he had wished for, nor such an one as he 
would wish to have again. 


HOW HOP SIN WENT ASHORE. 


They spent a dismal day here. The sun did not 
come out, and the sky still looked gray, as if sullen 
and tired with the fearful experiences it had passed 
through. Fortunately the two castaways had rice and 
fish enough, and with drift-wood managed to make 
a fire. Flint and tinder they had of course. 

The water gradually subsided and they kept the 
sampan afloat by pushing it down ' the side of the 
mound, until when evening came they entered and 
felt safe in pushing out toward the river again, confi- 
dent that they would be able to start for home as 
soon as morning came, and they could find out which 
way home lay. 

They slejDt well that night, and w^ere only awak- 
ened the next morning by the warm sun shining in 
their faces. The river had fallen to almost its proper 
level, but the sampan had evidently been carried far 
away from Canton, for Mrs. Sin could not see a single 
familiar landmark. She was sure, however, that she 
had been carried up instead of down the river, for 
it was much narrower where she then was than at 
Canton, and she knew that the river became broader 
as it approached the sea. Having settled this point 


HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 


she had no hesitation in pulling out into mid-stream. 
She then set about preparing breakfast, while Hop 
steered the boat which was carried along by the 
swift current. 

After breakfast Mrs. Sin took her oar and pulled 
steadily for nearly two hours before she came in 
sight of any familiar places. It was eleven o’clock 
when they came in sight of Canton, but already they 
had met many boats, and to all their inquiries had 
received such woful tales of lives lost, boats wrecked, 
and villages destroyed, that they were more than 
ever anxious to reach home and learn what harm 
had come to their friends. Of Tsing, her husband, 
the poor woman hardly dared think. She hoped, 
however, that he had been far enough away to have 
escaped the storm. 

It was a great time at the temple landing when the 
two wanderers pushed their battered, dismantled 
sampan among their acquaintances who had already 
given them up for lost. The older people crowded 
about Mrs. Sin, and demanded of her the story of 
her adventures, while Hop surrounded by the boys 
and girls found himself a hero. All the others had 


HOW SIN HOP WENT ASHORE. 


suffered more or less, but what most interested Hop 
was to see the great banyan-tree lying partly across 
the landing-place, torn up by the roots. In falling, 
it had crushed a great part of the wall in front of 
the temple ; and it seemed to Hop that the ta-fung 
had come to grant him every one of his wishes 
though in such fashion as he would rather not expe- 
rience again. 

It only remains to say that Sin Tsing arrived home 
shortly, having had only a slight encounter with the 
storm which had gone in another direction. Hop was 
cured of his longing to go ashore, for he was now 
a greater hero than Cheong, and that entirely satiS' 
fied him. 


THE LOST FIVE DOLLAR 
BILL. 


CHAPTER I. 

I S your trunk packed, Adrian ? ” 

“Yes, mamma.” 

“ And you are ready to go back to school } to Mr. 
Stephen, and to study ? ” 

“ Well, it is rather tough, after vacation ; but still 
I shall have fun.” 

Adrian looked up and saw that his mother’s eyes 
were full of tears. 

“ Although I am going to sunny Italy with papa, 
my winter will be long and dreary without you, my 
boy,” said she. 

Adrian drew near and kissed her. 

“ I suppose it has to be done ? ” said he inquiringly. 
“ Yes,” said she, running her soft hand through 


' THE LOST FIVE DOLLAR BILL. 

his thick curly hair. “ Home is a point of departure 
for boys at your age. I want to say one word of 
praise, my boy, before we part, and to thank you for 
your help this summer to Wilcox Brown. You have 
enabled him to go to Mr. Stephen’s school, and that 
.Ms a great thing.” 

“ Mamma, Wilcox is a very clever boy. I never 
saw such a head for figures. Nurse Brown has 
always called him her ‘ lightning calculator.’ It only 
needed that I should give him a few evenings a week, 
and to help him with his Latin, to enable him to enter 
'Our primary class.” - 

“ I do not like the boy’s face, Adrian. I hope that • 
your kindness may be rewarded ; but no matter 
whether it is or not, we do not do good things -to 
be' rewarded. I am glad, my boy, that you have 
helped Wilcox, and I trust he may do well at 
school.” _ 

-“Mamma, I thought you always liked nurse 
'^Brown ? ” said Adrian, wondering; for he had never 
heard his mother before speak ill of anybody. 

“ So I do, my child. She has been a most valua- 
ble servant ; but she had a very bad, unworthy hus- 


THE LOST FIVE DOLLAR BILL. 

band, and some days I think I see his expression in 
Wilcox. However, I have just got her a place as 
housekeeper to Mr. Stephen, so her good influence 
will be over her son all the time. Now go round to 
her room and take her these flannel shirts which I 
have bought for Wilcox, and then come back and 
spend your last hour with me.” 

Adrian bounded off to that distant wing of his 
father’s large country-house where nurse Brown and 
her son, and her little invalid daughter Alice, lived. 

Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter, Adrian’s father and 
mother, were going off to Europe, Alice was going to 
an aunt’s, and, as we have heard, nurse Brown, Wilcox 
and Adrian were all going over to Mr. Stephen’s 
great school at St. Christopher’s. 

As he entered, he saw Wilcox showing some little 
foxes to Alice. 

“ Wilcox, I think you look like a fox,” said Alice, 
as the cunning little animals put out their heads. 

“ I wish I was half as smart,” said the keen-eyed, 
sharp-looking boy. 

Nurse Brown was an Englishwoman who had not 
forgotten her good breeding and her respectful love 


THE LOST FIVE DOLLAR BILL. 


for her employers. She was tearful and grateful as 
Adrian gave her the nice flannel shirts for Wilcox. 

“ Indeed, sir, but your mother is good ! ” said she, 

and Wilcox and I are most grateful, I am sure.” 

“They are just the kind we wear to row in, to play 
ball in, to live in, in fact,” said Adrian, regarding the 
shirts with favor himself. 

“Look, Wilcox,” said his mother; “just as good as 
Mr. Adrian’s own.” 

“Why shouldn’t they be!” said Wilcox in a sullen, 
disagreeable tone. 

Nurse Brown answered this rude speech with a 
sound box on the ear. 

“You disrespectful, ungrateful boy!” said his 
mother, deep red with mortification. 

It seemed to Adrian as if the world were in a con- 
spiracy against his friend and pupil, so he adroitly 
turned the subject by talking of the foxes to Alice. 

“Mr. Stephen is such a naturalist,” said he, “and 
Wilcox has such a talent for catching animals, they 
will be sure to be great friends. Why, that white 
owl which Wilcox sent him by me last year is his 
greatest pet, and I know these foxes will delight him. 


THE LOST FIVE DOLLAR BILL. 


Well, good-by, Alice; you must get well and strong 
this winter. You, nurse Brown and Wilcox, please 
be ready in an hour, when the train wagon will be at 
the door ; ” and he bounded off to have a last sacred 
moment with his mother. 

II. 

Mr. Stephen’s school was a queer institution ; and 
except that he turned out the best Latin and Greek 
scholars, and the best mathematicians, after Exeter, 
people would have said he was a crazy man. For his 
school was a sort of family party, where every one 
was happy, and where each boy found his level ac- 
cording to his merit. 

There was a large aviary, a pigeon-cot, a preserve 
of foxes, raccoons and woodchucks ; there were do- 
mestic fowls by the hundreds, and there were dogs 
■enough to found a county hunt; there were cats, 
Persian and Angora ; there were pets like canaries, 
and mocking-birds, and owls, and a very learned 
parrot who spoke Greek, and there was a peacock 
who perpetually taught the boys by the force of ex- 
ample not to be egotistical. 


THE LOST FIVE DOLLAR BILL. 


Mr. Stephen had large barns and out-houses where 
these animals were all well cared-for, and his boys 
were the keepers. He bore with great composure his 
neighbors’ laughter. They called it “ Stephen’s 
menagerie ; ” but as he taught the boys natural history, 
along with giving them much innocent amusement, 
no one was the worse. 

Adrian was one of the best scholars, and a most 
popular and beloved boy; he could run, play ball, 
fight, sing, row a boat with anybody, and when it was 
known that Wilcox was a protegk of his, there was no 
doubt of his being well received. 

Wilcox, in addition to his bright mind, had, as 
Adrian had said, a great talent with animals, and his 
present of young foxes was as grateful to Mr. Stephen 
as the gift of a province would have been to an 
Eastern potentate. 

However, as the winter went on, the popularity of 
Wilcox did not increase ; Adrian could not understand 
why. One day he did find him kicking and maltreating 
an unoffending dog, and he said to him, “ Why, Wilcox ! 
I wouldn’t do that ; ” but the boy had some story to tell 
of the dog’s misdemeanorwhich made it seem proper. 


THE LOST FIVE DOLLAR BILL. 


Adrian, like all generous people, loved the boy he 
had helped. Many a study-hour did he go over and 
help Wilcox, as the early business of a new school 
troubled him. In return Wilcox did little for him 
but to occasionally remind him of home ; but a 
happy and prosperous and clever boy like Adrian 
needed nor asked for return. 

Except a few fights and some trifling misdemeanors, 
Wilcox got on, however, passably. His abilities were 
great, and Mr. Stephen would sometimes put down 
the owl which perched on his fore-finger, and silence 
the parrot as he heard the lessons of Wilcox, and 
look at him admiringly. 

“We shall have a scholar here for the higher 
mathematics,” said he one day to his assistant ; “ I 
wish I liked him better.” 

“ A sly boy, a sly-boots,” said Mr. Marlow, who 
hated Wilcox. 

Meantime nurse Brown had made an admirable 
housekeeper for Mr. Stephen. Her broad, clean 
room, where a teapot seemed to be sending up per- 
petual steam, was the perfection of comfort ; her well- 
trained housemaid, under-housemaid and cook, all 


THE LOST FI\^E DOLLAR BILL. 


testified to her English breeding as a good manager. 
They all obeyed her implicitly. Never were boys so 
well fed, and Mr. Stephen often paused in his walks 
to compliment her. 

“ You must not woo away my owl, Mrs. Brown,” 
said he playfully, as he saw the grave bird sitting on 
the window-sill near nurse Brown’s clean table. 

“ Oh, sir, not at all ! ” said she, rising and 
curtesying respectfully. “ The owl lived with me a 
few months after Wilcox caught him, and he remem- 
bers me a little. I have no chance against you, sir, 
I am sure.” 

And nurse Brown resumed her seat, highly flattered 
by Mr. Stephen’s notice. 


III. 

After a winter of hard study, and after the Easter 
vacation, the boys returned for the spring term, when 
boating was added to their other sports. 

The neighboring college of St. Joseph’s had chal- 
lenged St. Christopher to a match, and a great deal 
of enthusiasm followed. The higher and the lower 


THE LOST FIVE DOLLAR BILL. 


classes were to have a new boat, and each a new uni- 
form. 

A contribution was to be sent to an old scholar, 
William Merriman, in New York, who was to pur- 
chase these important factors in the coming race. 

Now, to save the feelings of the poorer boys, each 
boy was to send what he pleased in a letter to Mer- 
riman, and no one was to know what the other sent. 
When Merriman had received enough he was to write 
back. 

This plan pleased everybody, and Mr. Stephen, 
who knew that Adrian would probably give the most, 
thought that he saw his hand in the ingenious device, 
which placed the boy who sent one dollar, on the 
same plane as the boy who sent twenty. Boys are 
noble, far more noble sometimes than men, on these 
subjects, and the mere matter of wealth does not 
touch their unspoiled and generous hearts. 

The first payment which reached Merriman was 
acknowledged promptly ; but for some time Adrian 
got no answer to his second letter. When he did, 
Merriman wrote : 

“ Sorry to be disobliging, old fellow, but you forgot 


THE LOST FIVE DOLLAR BILL. 


to put in your last fiver — please remember next 
time.” 

Adrian had one fault which his father and mother 
could never correct. He was very careless about 
money. He carried it in his vest-pocket, in his watch- 
fob — in his shoes, his mother sometimes thought. He 
tried to cure himself, but in vain. He had always had a 
great deal ; that, perhaps, had made him careless, al- 
though it sometimes makes people very mean to have 
a great deal. He sat down and thought a moment. 
“ Could I,” said he, “ have been so careless ? Well, 

I suppose I didn’t put in the last five-dollar bill, yet 
I remember that I took it out of a fresh pile I had 
just got at the bank — I could swear that I did put it 
in.” 

Just then the parrot screamed: “Swear not at all ! 
swear not at all ! swear not at all ! Pretty Poll, 
pretty Poll, pretty Poll ! ” 

“ I won’t, Polly,” said Adrian; “ I will send another 
letter, and another five ! ” 

So he wrote to Merriman, and enclosed his five 
dollars. 

He took this letter down and laid it on nurse 


THE LOST FIVE DOLLAR BILL. 

Brown’s table, where the letters were always put for 
Michael, who gathered them in a bag to take to the 
post. The kitchen was empty, and he looked up at 
the clock, which ticked loudly. 

“ An hour yet to post-time,” thought Adrian ; 
“how-de-do, old Aristophanes,” (this was the owl 
who sat on the window-seat) ; “ you look wise, but you 
are foolish. Fly up into your old pine tree ! I would 
if I were you ! ” 

And he went oif, gayly singing, and leaving the owl 
and his letter together. 

IV. 

The week went on, and Merriman wrote to all the 
boys, but not for some time to Adrian, finally sending 
him another request for money, as Adrian had pri- 
vately told him that he would make up a given sum 
which was wanted. This time Adrian knew well that 
he had neither neglected to write, nor to enclose the 
money, nor to place the letter on the table, where the 
letters were always left. He had a private interview 
with Mr. Stephen. 


THE LOST FIVE DOLLAR BILL. 


That gentleman was grave and troubled; he had 
had to cope with many disagreeable facts lately, and 
he was depressed and absent-minded. 

Not even the parrot, who spoke excellent Greek, 
nor Aristophanes, who looked wise, cheered the heart 
of Mr. Stephen. 

“ One letter goes all right, one letter goes without 
the five-dollar bill ; one letter disappears entirely. 
Adrian, we have got a thief in the school, and do 
you know, I believe that it is Wilcox ! He has 
access, of course, to his mother’s apartment at all 
times ; he looks over and sorts the letters. I fear 
that he opened your first letter — it only required 
that he should have held it over the steam of the tea- 
pot. I believe that he abstracted the missing five- 
dollar bill, and has taken the second letter bodily, 
for he would hardly dare to take the five-dollar bill 
out and send the letter on a second time.” 

I do not believe a word of it,” said Adrian stoutly. 
‘‘I do not believe that nurse Brown’s son would 
steal.” 

He is a boy who does not inspire me with con- 
fidence,” said Mr. Stephen ; “ he is too sharp and 


THE LOST FIVE DOLLAR BILL. 


clever. He has no warm blood about his heart.” 

Adrian’s face fell ; he remembered what his mother 
had said. 

There is nothing so contagious as suspicion. 
Adrian had spoken freely of the first loss, but he 
had not told of the second, except to his master, yet 
the boys all began to look askance at Wilcox, and to 
shun him. Even those who had taken lessons of 
him in the noble art of trapping muskrats, became 
cold and distant; and the bully of the school, Joe 
Stoutenberg, said “ thief ” as he passed him. But 
Wilcox w^ent silently by him. 

Adrian treated him as well as eve^ but he could 
not help feeling very disagreeably. The spring term 
was spoiled, and all the fun of boating was over. 

The boys remembered a thousand things against 
Wilcox which they had never thought of urging 
before ; and as a favorite pigeon, Lady Griselda, died 
about that time, little Walter Phyfe said that he 
believed that Wilcox had poisoned her. 

Of course the boy, whose nature was a secretive 
one, felt this dreadful change. No one had told him 
what it was, but he knew that he was hated. If he 


THE LOST FIVE DOLLAR BILL. 


had been frank, if he could have gone to Adrian and 
have told his grief, all could be explained; but alas ! 
he did not like Adrian as well as Adrian liked him. 
He had some envy of the rich and fortunate boy who 
had beeii so good to him, and the poor fellow felt 
the grip of evil passions fastening like terrible claws 
into his young heart. 

He had been very successful with his lessons, and 
yet Mr. Stephen could not praise him as he otherwise 
would, but in his evening lecture spoke disparagingly 
of good minds if they were not held up by good 
hearts. 

The matter came to a crisis w en Wilcox was re- 
fused admittance to the second crew. This was a 
piece of terrible cruelty, for he pulled a strong oar ; 
and when Adrian heard of it, he felt strongly indig- 
nant, and made a speech to the boys. 

“ It isn’t any use, Captain Adrian,” said little 
Walter Phyfe. “ We lower-form boys are not going 
to sit with a thief in our boat.” 

“ How do you know he is a thief? ” said Adrian. 
“ I lost the money, and I have never cliarged' 


him.” 


THE LOST FIVE DOLLAR BILL. 


“ Because we have seen him tampering with the 
letters,” said Stoutenberg. 

Adrian had nothing to say ; he was but a boy, 
and he was the friend of Wilcox. Was it possible 
that this pupil whom he had taught with so much 
pride, whose tuition his own father had promised to 
pay, whom he had introduced into this excellent 
school, could be an ungrateful thief ! 

He remembered his mother’s words, her objec- 
tions; he remembered what Alice had said about 
his looking like a fox ; and Adrian walked oif to 
the dog-kennels to look in those honest eyes of his 
four-footed friends, for he was losing faith in human 
nature. 

And now occurred one of those curious accidents 
— we call them coincidences — that so often help us, 
as if by an invisible hand, out of our difficul- 
ties. 

Adrian’s mother was travelling in Italy, and she 
had written some letters occasionally in easy Italian to 
her son ; for Adrian had a great talent for languages, 
and already had made some progress in that beauti- 
ful language which is called the “younger daughter 


THE LOST FIVE DOLLAR BILL. 


of the Latin,” and which comes easy to a Latin scholar. 

As he opened his mother's letter, which came to ' 
him as her letters often did when he was in perplex- 
ity, out fell a little folded paper. 

It was an Italian story, and he took up his Italian 
dictionary, and soon made out its meaning. 

“ IVe got it ! ” said he, swinging his arms in the 
air, “ and if it didn’t have to come all the way from 
Italy!” 

And he seized his hat and ran out into the chicken- 
yard, where the boys were giving corn to a clamorous 
crowd of cock turkeys, geese, and chanticleer and all 
his court, and were making as much noise as if they 
too were of the feathered tribe. 

“Boys 1 silence! I have an idea ! ” said Adrian. 

“Well, hold on to it, for you don’t know when 
you’ll get another,” said Stoutenberg. 

Adrian looked about to see if Wilcox was in the 
crowd. Alas, no ! the poor tabooed boy was not there. 

“You know I lost some money and some letters, 
don’t you, boys ! ” 

“Yes ! yes ! yes ! ” 

“ Well, you think Wilcox is the thief?” 


STOUTENBERG DID AS HE WAS BID 


V 










THE LOST FIVE DOLLAR BILL. ' 

‘‘Yes ! yes ! yes ! We know he is ! ” 

“ Now, what if I prove you are in the wrong — 
what then ? ” 

“ Prove it ! prove it ! prove it ! ” 

“Well, come with me, then, and I’ll show you the 
thief.” 

It wanted just an hour to post-time, and nurse 
Brown’s kitchen was empty. Adrian took three 
boys as watchers, and placing them where they could 
see everything, he carefully went in and laid a letter . 
on the table. 

He then withdrew. 

As he did so, all the boys saw the owl Aristophanes 
come stealthily in from the window, and, taking the 
letter in his short stubbed beak, fly up to the old 
pine tree. 

“Now,” said Adrian, “do you, Stoutenberg, go up. 
and see what you can find in the owl’s nest.” 

There was an anxious moment. 

Stoutenberg did as he was bid, and came down 
again bringing with him a scratched face, for the owl 
was pugnacious, and a stained, weather-beaten letter, 

4 - 

with a lot of other papers. 


THE LOST FIVE DOLLAR BILL. 


“ Now/’ said Adrian, “ open that letter directed to 
Merriinan.” 

It was the letter with the five-dollar bill in it 
— Adrian’s own letter. 

“ You see,” said Adrian, “ I did forget to put in 
the second five-dollar bill, and my third letter was 
stolen by Aristophanes ; so all is accounted for. 
Now let us go and tell Mr. Stephen, and then, hooray, 
boys ! let us go and carry Wilcox round on our . 
shoulders, and apologize to nurse Brown.” 

For the honest face of this good woman had looked 
sadly troubled whilst her boy was being sent to 
Coventry. 

“ And now, Adrian,” said Mr. Stephen after school 
hours, but before the boys were dismissed, “how hap- 
pened you to think of Aristophanes as the thief.” 

“It was my mother’s letter,” said Adrian; “she 
sent me the story of La Gazza ladra.^^ 

“ Read it aloud if you can translate it,” said Mr. 
Stephen. And Adrian read slowly : 

“A thieving magpie having stolen a diamond 
necklace, and having hidden it in the hand of a 
statue of Justice in the public square — ” 


THE LOST FIVE DOLLAR BILL. 


“ No ! no ! no ! Adrian, you are getting the cart 
before the horse ; try again and think of your nomi- 
native case.” 

Adrian blushed, and looking again at the precious 
piece of paper he read : 

“the thieving magpie. 

“ A lady stopping at an inn, left a valuable diamond 
necklace on her table while she went to church ; 
when she came back she found that it was gone, and 
she charged the maid of the inn with the theft. The 
poor girl was tried and found guilty. As she was 
led to the public square to be executed, a great 
thunder storm came up, and the lightning struck the 
statue of Justice, throwing the scales from the hand 
of the statue into the street. In one of them was 
found a magpie’s nest, and in it the diamond 
necklace.” 

“ Very well translated, Adrian,” said Mr. Stephen. 
“ Mr. Longfellow has done it a little better in verse 
■ — but you are learning Italian very fast. However,” 
said he, his eyes looking very red, “ there is one 
thing, my boy, which you can teach us all. Come 


THE LOST FIVE DOLLAR BILL. 


here to me and take my hand, and you too, Wilcox. 
Boys, vve have all to learn from Adrian to believe the 
best of a fellow-being until we know the worst. But 
for his sense of justice, Wilcox might have lingered 
under an unjust, cruel suspicion, a terrible shadow. 
For my part, I ask the pardon of you, Wilcox, 
my promising and my unjustly suspected scholar.” 

Wilcox did not look “like a fox” as he turned and 
hid his face on Adrian’s shoulder. 


THE KINKIPAWS. 


1 two full weeks had flaming posters — at the 

corners of the streets, at the stores, at the 
post-office, at the blacksmith’s shop — in quiet little 
Hingford, announced a grand moonlight excursion to 
Old Orchard Beach on the night of the twenty-first : 
“ Round trip by steamboat, 50 cents.” It was to be 
an occasion. The militia companies of half a dozen 
neighboring villages, having landed with admiring 
friends and kindred at the beach, were to engage, 
according to the bills — 

“ In the smoke and flash and rattle 
Of a rousing big sham battle 1 ” 

After which they would all sit down together in the 
sand to a steaming hot clam-chowder at twenty-five 
cents a head. 


THE KINKIPAWS. 


“Thet don’t mean twenty-five cents a plate,” 
explained Billy Tanker, the day after the bills' 
were posted, to a surrounding clump of Kinkipaws, 

but twenty-five cents apiece for all you c’n 
eat ! ” 

Whereupon there was a great smacking of lips, and 
wagging of heads, and rubbing about of hands. 
For that very afternoon had the Kinkipaws resolved 
(gathering themselves together in one corner of the 
school-yard at recess) to go. Furthermore, they had 
resolved to go in costume — blankets, beads, war- 
paint and feathers. 

“ An’ le’s ev’ry chap pick up a dollar somehow,” 
Tim Landers had suggested. “We c’n do it; we 
got two weeks. Fifty cents for ticket, twenty-five 
cents for chowder, an’ twenty-five cents- for inc’den- 
tals — sech as peanuts, lemonade, and sech things.” 
A scheme which had been adopted. 

“ Guess they won’t make much money off’n us on 
chowder ! ” smiled Billy Huff at the close of Billy 
Tanker’s explanation. 

“ I tell ye wot ! ” piped up Teddy Fayles, the littlest 
chap in the tribe, but by no means the last to be. 


THE KINKIPAWS. 


heard from ; “ we c’n show ’em some war-dancin’ 
. thet’ll make tHe’r eyes shine ! ” 

“ S’pose we’ll dance ? ” asked some one. 

“Oh, no!” cried Teddy, “guess not! Oh, no! 
We’ll only jes’ have a grand war-dance round a bon- 
fire on the beach ! Hey, fellers ? ” 

And this scheme was likewise carried. 

And from that time forth had the Kinkipaws, singly 
or in groups, as from a pinnacle of lively expectation, 
explored those flaming posters day by day. 

But the Kinkipaws ? 

In the village school at Hingford were seventeen 
sturdy little Yankees who had been wont, on Satur- 
day afternoons and at such other times as school-boy 
fortune favored, to apparel and deport themselves in 
humble imitation of the historic savages who once 
had scoured that region round about. These, my 
lads, were the Kinkipaws ; and their chief was Billy 
Tanker. And never did a corresponding number of 
youngsters in any other New England township have 
jollier times than they ! 

Well, the eventful evening had arrived. The moon 
rose, round and big, from out the eastern ocean, and 


THE KINKIPAWS. 


the Monk Musk lay at the pier. It was advertised 
to start at eight o’clock. It lacked yet a quarter to 
eight ; but a gay company with drums and fifes — 
the fifes piping high and drums beating — were await- 
ing the hour of departure. 

But where was Billy Tanker ? All the other Kin- 
kipaws in full array, their faces so besmeared with 
India ink and scokeberry-juice that their own mothers 
would not have known them, were moving restlessly 
about in quest of him — now and then shouting his 
name, now and then sending in among the strains of 
martial music, the shrill discordant war-whoop of 
their tribe. 

Some minutes wore by. At length, well up the 
road, an answering shriek was heard — faint, but suf- 
ficient. 

“ Thet’s him, boys ! ” cried Billy Huff. “ He’s 
cornin’ ! ” 

And in a moment more the tardy tattooed warrior 
hove in sight. In the moonlight they could see him, 
tomahawk in hand, tearing down toward them at a 
spanking pace, his red blanket flapping behind him. 

There was a general rush to meet him, and a 


THE KINKIPAWS. 


jangle in the air : “ Where you been ? ” “ What you 

been waitin’ fer ? ” Why didn’t ye git here before ? ” 

“ Are w^e all here ? ” gasped the panting sachem, 
glancing hastily abound. 

“ Yes, the whole camp ! ” responded Cy Doubleday, 
who, next to Billy Tanker, was the highest in command. 

“Well, come on out this way a minute, will ye? 
I’ve got suthin’ important ter say.” And without 
further explanation he led the wondering Kinkipaws 
to a spot some forty rods up the beach, where, mount- 
ing an old mackerel-tub that lay half buried in the 
sand, he proceeded to address them. 

He was picturesque ! His head was encircled by 
a stack of henhawk’s feathers, and a yellow-flannel 
token, lil«e the disc of a Jack-o’-lantern, was sewed 
on the front of his shirt. At his back were his bow 
and quiver; on his arm, a shield of leather; his 
scalping-knife stuck in his belt, and his ears were 
painted red. 

“Fellers!” he began grimly — and it was plain 
to be seen that something was about to happen — 
“who is the meanest, stingiest, mis’ablest old skin- 


flint in this whole town ? ” 


THE KINKIPAWS. 


The Kinkipaws, standing in a semicircle in front 
of their chief and the mackerel-tub, for an instant 
looked unsettled. 

“Jed Hoosel” suddenly cried Teddy Fayles, with 
a burst of inspiration. 

“ Thet’s so ! ” said Tim Landers. 

Immediately this opinion — the object of which was 
a well-to-do but exceedingly close-handed farmer re- 
siding about a mile from Hingford village — was vig- 
orously re-echoed ; Teddy ending up with, “ Va, sir; 
he ain’t no kind of a man ! ” 

“ Now you’ve hit it ! ” exclaimed the chief, his fists 
crammed into his trowsers pockets, his feet spread as 
far apart as the the circumference of the mackerel- 
tub would permit ; “ an’ I tell ye, ef we don’t p’vent 
him, he’s go’n ter do suthin’ ter-morrer so righ’-down 
mean thet scalpin’ ’ud be too good fer him ! ” 

“Wot’s he go’n ter do?” inquired Cy. 

“Why, he’s got a mortgage er suthin’ on uncle 
Pete Hillis’ cow; an’ ef it ain’t paid up ’fore sun- 
down ter-morrer, he’s go’n ter take his cow ! ” 

Uncle Pete, and his* wife aunt Deborah, were an 
aged colored couple, who for many years had occu- 


THE KINKIPAWS. 


pied a rude but neatly kept cottage on the outskirts 
of the village. And here, chiefly by means of such 
odd jobs as the former was enabled to pick up in the 
course of the week about town, they maintained a 
precarious living. 

Uncle Pete could ’a’ paid for her easy ’nough,” 
continued Billy, “ef he hedn’t hed sech a ter’ble 
time ’ith the rheumatiz ’long back. An’ fellers! I 
tell ye he’s gettin’ ter be a putty ole man ! An’ fer 
ole Hoose ter come an’ take his ole white-face’ cow — 
thet him an’ aunt Deb’rah loves jest ez ef it was 
somehodiy — et’s a contemp’ble piece o’ business !” 

“ Thet’s so 1 ” assented the crowd ; while Teddy 
was for tomahawking old Hoose “fust thing in the 
mornin’.” 

“ Thet’s what it is ! ” the chief went on. “ An’ ef 
we’re the sort o’ chaps I think we be, the Kinks ain’t 
go’n ter let him do it ! ” 

“How we go’n ter help it? ” asked Tim Landers. 

“ Pay thet mortgage oursel’s ! ” 

There was a short but impressive silence. It was 
a solution the Kinkipaws had* scarcely foreseen, and 
one which they did not yet entirely comprehend. A 


THE KINKIPAWS. 


suspicion, though, was fast getting in among them. 

How much money is the’ in this crowd ? ” Billy 
again broke forth. 

“ Seventeen dollars,” said Teddy. 

“Well, thet’s enough ter pay the mortgage, an’ two 
dollars besides. Shell we do it ? ” 

“An’ not go t’ the picnic?” cried Billy Huff in 
amazement. 

“Well, I don’t see’s we c’n go fer nuthin’,” said 
Billy Tanker, coolly. “ It’s picnic er cow ! ” 

The Kinkipaws exchanged inquiring glances.* 

“ Then jes’ lemme tell ye thet I don’t perpose no 
cow! ” retorted Billy Huff. And it was evident that, 
figuratively speaking, he expressed the views of at 
least a dozen disaffected warriors. “ We don't ’spon- 
s’ble fer the cow ! Ain’t we all had ter work ter git 
the money to go ’ith ? ” 

“ Yes, we hev ! ” the chief assented, stoutly ; “an’ I 
s’pose we cud hev a first-class time ’f we was ter go 
over ter Old Orchard Beach ’long ’ith the others. 
But I think o’ ter-morrer, when we see Jed Hoose 
drivin’ off uncle Pete’s ole Phroney I ” and Billy 
gazed calmly at the group of frescoed faces with the 


THE KINKIPAWS. 


consciousness of having scored a point. “ ^ Taint ez 
ef him an’ aunt Deb’rah hedn’t never done nothin’ 
fer us,” he argued. “ Who scraped our bows an’ 
arrers? — seventeen bows, an’ strung^ ’em ! an’ more’n 
a hundred arrers \—thefs wot I wan ter know. Kin 
ye pick out another man in this whole town would ’a’ 
done it ?” 

Some one ventured the opinion that the “ scraping” 
alluded to (an operation, by way of finish, performed 
with pieces of broken glass) had not been so very 
much of a job after all. 

“ It wa’nt, hey.? Well, it tuk the bes’ part o’ sev’al 
wet days, I notice.” 

“ Thet’s what it did ! ” said Tim. 

“ An’ I'm tellin’ ye the’ ain’t another man in this 
whole town would ’a’ done it ! P’r’aps ye think it 
wa’n’t nothin’ fer aunt Deb’rah ter git up thet candy- 
pull for us, nuther ! Who gev us the tar ? Who gev 
us the root beer ? Fellers, the’ ain’t nobody ’xibited 
so much int’est in the Kinks ez them two ole black 
folks hez, an’ now’s our chance.” 

“ Don’t ye s’pose,” queried Cy, who was endeavor- 
ing to find a less disastrous way out of the difficulty, 


THE KINKIPAWS. 


“don’t ye s’pose ef some ’f us was ter go over ter 
Hoose’s ter-morrer mornin’ an’ tell him thet ef he’d 
wait a couple o’ weeks longer fer the money thet we 
fellers ’ud pay it — don’t ye s’pose he’d wait? ” 
“That’s wot I was so long a-gettin’ here for!” 
cried Billy. “ I on’y beared of it ’bout an hour ago, 
an’ I see Jed Hoose in Hicks’ store shed, an’ I told 
him thet ef he’d wait till the fust o’ next month we’d 
pay him. For I knowed well ’nough ’thout askin’, 
ye’d all be willin’.” 

“ An’ wouldn’t he ? ” cried three or four. 

“Nah!” exclaimed the chieftain with supreme 
disgust; “he thinks jes’ ’cause we’re boys thet our 
word ain’t good fer nothin’ ! ” 

“He does, does he?” quoth Cy. “Well, thet 
settles me 1 ” And deliberately striding up the beach 
a little, he drew a twenty-foot line with his boot- 
heel in the sand. “ Ev’ry chap thet’s fer showin’ 
ole Hoose that the Kinks hez got more honor in 
one minute than he c’n get up in a hundred years, 
come over this side o’ the line — picnic er no pic- 
nic!’ 

Tim Landers, without a word, marched over. 


THE KINKIPAWS. 


“ Come on ! ” urged Cy to several who seemed to 
be wavering. 

Billy Tanker dismounted and stalked across, and 
five other Kinkipaws followed ; among them, Teddy 
Fayles. 

“AughI hold up, fellers!” groaned Billy Huff, 
still at the head of an indisposed majority. “ What’s 
the use! You’re jes’ go’n ter lose the best time you 
ever had in yer life ’f ye stay ter home ! ” 

“ Look here. Huffy ! ” exclaimed Cy, with com- 
mendable zeal ; “ wot kind of a time d’ye s’pose 
uncle Pete an’ aunt Deb’rah ’d hev ter-morrer 
night, with their ole cow gone ? an’ the next night! 
an’ the next ! an’ the next ! Hez ary feller here got 
an appetite ter go over ter Ole Orchard Beach an’ 
stuff hisself under them circumstences ? ” 

“Oh, you c’n talk!” growled “Huffy;” “talk is 
easy! But mebbe I ain’t quite so mean now ez 
you think I be ! ” 

“ Come on over this side o’ the line, then ! ” per- 
sisted Cy. 

“Wal, ef you’re go’n ter make sech a ter’ble fuss 
I will come over ! ” and suiting the action to the 


THE KINKIPAWS. 


word, the disconcerted Billy went scuffing through 
the sand, and sullenly took his stand with the 
mortgage-lifters — the sourest-faced philanthropist 
the moon ever looked down upon. 

The backbone of the opposition was now effectually 
broken. To win over the remaining warriors was 
comparatively an easy task, since no one seemed 
very anxious to accompany the excurtionists as a 
full-pledged Kinkipaw, in the absence of the chief 
and other leading spirits of the tribe. But the 
grown-up people on the Hingford pier, and aboard 
the steamer, little guessed that the vociferous whoop- 
ing sent up from the vicinity of the mackerel-tub a 
little later, was to clinch an enterprise which, in 
point of real merit, would so far outshine the 
projected fusillade at Old Orchard Beach as to make 
it exceedingly dim. 

And then the whistle blew. 

“ Come on down an’ see ’em start ! ” cried Billy 
Tanker, brandishing his tomahawk about his ears 
and scurrying toward the landing. The others came 
galloping after. 

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ON THE NKiHT OE THE EXCURSION. 







THE KINKIPAWS. 


pilot jingled the little bell in the engine-room, and 
the Monk Musk, with its hilarious cargo, ^nd the 
fond, relinquished hopes of the blighted Kinkipaws, 
went sailing out to sea. 

Half an hour later a noiseless band of plumed 
and painted warriors crept into the whitewashed 
enclosure that surrounded uncle Pete’s dwelling, 
and peeped into the kitchen windows. The aged 
colored couple were at prayers. By the dim and 
flickering light of a tallow candle, aunt Deborah, 
with the old leather-bound Bible spread open on 
her lap, was slowly reading aloud from the eighteenth 
chapter of Matthew. Uncle Pete — his elbows on 
his knees, his face between his hands, and his eyes 
fixed mournfully on the floor — sat silently, thought- 
fully listening. 

It was a lowly room : a few chairs, a stove, a table, 
some tinware on the dresser, a few cheap, bright- 
hued pictures on the walls, a mantel clock. In one 
corner a ladder led up through a hole between the 
rough joists overhead to the garret. And this hole, 
which was perhaps a yard square, and into which 


THE KINKIPAWS. 


after a careful and respectful survey of what was 
going on below, and at which Billy Tanker began 
steadily gazing, must finally have become a thing of 
some consequence. For Billy called Cy Doubleday’s 
attention to it, and the two withdrew a short dis- 
tance from the house and held a low-voiced but 
vigorous consultation. Then the rest of the tribe 
were summoned. Briefly and hurriedly the matter 
was explained. Unique and strong, though noiseless, 
were the marks of approbation. And immediately 
afterwards Teddy Fayles, with fifteen silver dollars 
in his hat, was “ boosted ” to the roof of uncle Pete’s 
woodshed, up which he crawled in his stocking-feet, 
stealthily raised the little attic-window at the top of it, 
and climbed into the chamber. The Kinkipaws 
with bumping hearts resumed their former places. 

Verse after verse the good old woman devoutly 
struggled through, till finally she came to the nine- 
teenth. The chuckling younkers heard her then 
repeating : 

“ Ag’in I say unto you, dat ef two ob you shall agree 
on yearf ez touchin’ any’ting dat dey shall ask, it shall 
be done for dem ob my Fadder which is in Hebben.” 


THE KINKIPAWS. 


“ Wha-what dat ? ” interrupted uncle Pete, slowly 
straightening up; “wha-what dat? Jist read dat ar 
las’ verse ober ’g’in, mudder. Jist dat las' verse.” 

Aunt Deborah complied. 

“ Wha’-wha’ — does Mahsr say dem dar words his 
own se’f ? ” 

‘^Dem berry words ! ” 

Uncle Pete sat blinking and staring • at aunt 
Deborah across one corner of the table, until she too, 
in wonder at his singular behavior, began blinking 
and staring in return. 

“ Mudder ! ” he finally exclaimed, “ ain’t dell jist 
two ob us yere dish yer berry minute ? ” 

“ Why, deh is ! ” said aunt Deborah, faintly. 

“ An’ isn’t we boaf ’greed ez touchin’ de p’opriety 
ob askin’ ’bout de mor’gige ? ” 

“ We is dat.” 

“ Whut’s de nex’ verse ? ” 

Aunt Deborah turned to the page: “For whar 
two or free are gaddered togedder in my name, dere 
am I in de midst ob dem.” 

“ Stop right dar ! ” cried uncle Pete, clutching the 
arms of his big easy-chair and working himself out 


THE KINKIPAWS. 


to the edge of it. “ I’se gwine ter supplecate fer 
de mor’gige. Ef Mahsr say dat his own se’f, 
he keep de promise, shore ! Chee’ up, mudder ! Dis 
yere’s our time ob trubble, mudder — dis yere is,” 
and tears began to trickle down the poor old cheeks. 
“ We’se be’n in de midst ob ’Gyptian darkness ’bout 
de mor’gige, shore ’nuff, but I’se gwine ter look up ! 
An’ I’m gwine ter look up till .1 done gits ’nuff ter 
pay up dat ar mor’gige to de berry las’ cent 1 Dat’s 
whut I is, mudder ! ” 

And uncle Pete — followed by aunt Deborah, who 
was by this time convulsively sobbing — slid down 
upon his knees and closed his eyes. 

“ Our Farder in Hebben,” began uncle Pete, 
grasping the arms of his chair again, his voice sub- 
dued and broken ; and outside there in the darkness, 
still huddling about the uncurtained kitchen windows, 
their hearts now pounding away like a chorus of 
clocks, the Kinkipaws drew back — they liked not 
either to look or to listen further. 

“ Now. then, Teddy ! ” whispered the excited chief- 
tain from beloV. And Teddy, with clamorous effect, 
let fall the fifteen dollars ! On to the table, on to the 


THE KINKIPAWS. 


Stove, against the row of tin things on the dresser, 
the dollars of the Kinkipaws chinked, and clinked, 
and jingled, clattered and banged. 

“Wha — what dat?” exclaimed uncle Pete with a 
start, opening his eyes to their widest capacity and 
staring around. 

Aunt Deborah, who had been surprised into a 
scream by the clangor, was now in mute amazement 
following the dizzy motions of the silver as it went 
rolling and spinning about the floor in all directions. 
Slowly, cautiously, she now reached out her hand and 
picked up a piece of it that had settled near her chair. 

“ Why, farder I ” she faintly cried, as if scarce 
daring to trust to her shattered senses, “ it’s money, 
shore’s dis work ! It’s money come straight down to 
us I” 

Speechless, bewildered, uncle Pete scrambled to 
his feet. “ What ? ” he gasped ; “ what ! Maws’r 
ain’t done gone answered de pra’r soon’s dis ? What ! 
what ! ” 

“ Lebben dollars, farder ! ” aunt Deborah presently 
announced, counting them out on the table. 

Lebben ! ” exclaimed uncle Pete, “ lebben ! 


THE KINKIPAWS. 


whar’s de rest ob it ? Rest ob it round yere some- 
whar’s, shore’s ye bawn ! Maws’r nebber do nufiin’ ob 
dis sort by halbs ! ” 

Oh, yere’s anudder ! ” she cried, “ an’ yere’s 
anudder ! ” raking them out from beneath the stove 
with the poker. 

“ Bress us ! on’y two lef’ ! on’y jist two ! Dey’s 
yere ! dey’s yere ! ’pend ’pon it, dey’s jist done got 
misplaced ’bout yere somewhar’s ! Keep a-huntin’, 
yo’ll fin’ dem boaf ’fore shortly 1 ” and uncle Pete 
stood .peering here and there, with outstretched neck, 
in a tremor of expectation. “ See ’f dey ain’t in 
’mongst dem ar cookin’ ’tensils, mudder. ’Pears like 
dey mout some ob ’em landed ober dar, by de soun’ 
dat ’curred when dey done drap froo de roof.” 

“ ’Tis, yere dey is, fer true ! ” aunt Deborah 
shouted as she thrust her hand into a two-quart dish 
on the dresser. 

“ Bress de Maws’r ! bress de Lawd ! ” fervently 
responded uncle Pete. “ Fufteen dollahs, mudder ! ” 
bringing his hand down on the table with a force 
which made the silver jingle ; “ dat mortgage ain’t 
good for shucks ! Deh ain’t nobody ner nuffin’ kin 


THE KINKIPAWS. 


tech ole Phroney an’ remoob her off’n dese yer prem- 
ises !” 

And into that little lowly room, with its flickering 
light, where two old darkeys in the midst of their 
simple-mindedness had tried to pray according to 
the Word, great joy had come. 

“Fellers!” exclaimed Billy Tanker in an impres- 
sive undertone, when the Kinkipaws had rounded the 
corner of uncle Pete’s brush-pile and were safely out 
of hearing, “ I calkerlate we’ve hed our picnic ! ” 

Indeed ! indeed I their hearts had fed on honey ! 
Language is weak ; but perhaps the sentiment of the 
whole tribe was befittingly expressed by Billy Huff’s 
emphatic “ Blest ef we hain’t ! ” 


RALPH’S “CUB.” 


I3EECHNUTS ! Baskets of them, lying heaped in 
their three-cornered angularity ; keen of edge, 
sharp of point, brown, with the rich, dark gloss of 
their autumnal freshness. A babel of young voices, 
shrill with eagerness, and a distracted mamma. 

“ Children ! if you do not be still I shall go 
crazy ! ” 

But we had heard that before, so the remark had 
lost its originality, and as in spite of the dire prophecy 
our little mother was still by far the sanest and most 
level-headed of us all, we took a fresh breath while 
our tongues wagged anew. 

“ It was up by the old tree — Jack caught — six 
squirrels came right out of — ” 

“ Telergram, mum ! ” and a dusty face peered 
inquisitively in at the door, opening it without cere- 


RALPH’S “cub.” 


mony, in country fashion, and nodding at us with a 
saucy grin. 

There was an awful silence. “A telegram!” 
We had heard of that ; it was what knocked Teddy 
Wells sky high last summer, when he was at the 
office and a thunderstorm went in too ! We scattered 
like a flock of chickens, and Jack crept in under 
mother’s chair as she tore open the envelope ner- 
vously ; women are always rather afraid of telegrams, 
and connect their approach with all manner of 
strange doings, and this one did not depart from the 
way of its ancestors in bringing tidings. 

^^New York twelve o'clock safely landed home to-night 
with young cub and family pupy. 

RobertP 

“A what?” and thankful tears were dried in 
amazement. “ I cannot have read it right ! ” Then 
she read it over slowly again, amid a general bustle, 
trying to separate the unpunctuated message into its 
proper clauses. 

“ Safely landed I ” “ Hooray ! ! ” and we all 


Ralph’s “cub.” 


danced a jig upon the kitchen floor, to the telegraph 
boy’s unqualified admiration. 

“ Hush-h-h ! safely landed, home to-night with — ” 
“ Hi-yar-r-r ! ” and Ralph was standing on his head 
on the corner — “with a young cub and a family 
pupy. What on earth is that ? ” 

“Why, a puppy! a live cub! Father’s a brick!” 
was Ralph’s emphatic endorsement of the news, with 
all the enthusiasm of sixteen years and some odd 
months. 

“A cub?” quavered the girls with dismayed 
glances at one another, and again Jack with a dis- 
tressful howl retired temporarily from the world 
beneath his mother’s chair. 

“ Come out of that, Jack, you are in mother’s yarn ! ” 
and Ralph dragged the little sinner up to light. “ The 
cub is for me, of course,” he continued loftily. “ And 
I suppose the family puppy’s for you ; there’ll be a 
pair of you then.” 

“ Ralph ! ” said mother reproachfully. 

“Well, he is.” And then the 5^outh subsided, 
covering his repentance by saying nothing about it, 


4 


Ralph’s “cub.” 

and presently he slipped out of the room while the 
rest of us sat down upon the rug before the fire and 
gabbled away noisily, wondering what father would 
bring to us, since he started so bravely in his presents 
for the boys. 

Havana was then a large slice from the Arabian 
Nights to us, and the business that called him away 
so suddenly had not prevented father from writing 
the liveliest of letters to his “little household gods,” 

' — from thirteen-year Mollie to six-year Jack we 
each had our separate note in the big envelope that 
came so regularly; but we did not see the private 
postscripts that mother so carefully burned after read- 
ing. She was a brave little woman, and over as anx- 
ious a heart as ever beat, carried a calm face and a 
serene faith in the bright side of things for the little 
folks, looking forward yet to the time when their 
school should be strong and flourishing, and father’s 
weary brain unharassed by less congenial schemes. 

“ What could Robert be thinking of ! ” she exclaimed, 
looking around at us in a dazed way. “ The puppy is 
bad enough, but what shall we do with the cub .? ” 


Ralph’s “cub/’ 


“ Does tub ’at’s tomin’ b’loug to’ee Free Bears ? ” 
asked Jack, still in a state of indefinable terror, and 
connecting the distinguished traveller with that best 
known of his nursery tales with guileless inno- 
cence. 

Getting no answer to his question he suddenly 
disappeared, and we were sent off in a troop to hunt 
him up. 

A mighty dust and pounding came out of the barn, 
and a medley of boys’ voices as we peered inquisi- 
tively through a crack. The old barn was swarming 
with them, climbing among the beams, swinging in 
long reaches from ropes that hung from the rafters, 
rolling down from the upper mow neck and heels 
into the deep bay below, in a reckless follow-my- 
leader ! 

We crept into the doorway and gazed with speech- 
less admiration ; oh, to be a boy, and to be able 
to do such things! and the humiliation of being a 
girl! 

“ Hi ! Mollie, come up here ! ” and Jimmie Earle 
stood on his head on a beam above the hay, in true 


V. 


Ralph’s ‘‘cub.” 

circus style. “ Come, I’ll show you how,” he added 
hospitably, seeing her wishful look, and with various 
shivers we two were carefully guided up by vari- 
ous pegs and unseen “toe-cracks,” to the perilous 
height, from whence we gazed down at the smaller 
girls, oh, so very far below ! with perfect satisfac- 
tion. 

“ This is comfortbler, now it is too cold for spi- 
ders.” And Mollie gave an uncomfortable look at 
the shingles overhead, gray with cobwebs, and here 
and there blazing with a spot of vivid fire, where the 
sun’s rays were shining on a resinous crack. We 
used at first to think that it was real fire, it looked so 
like the glow of the winter coals. 

“ How nice it is up here,” and she gave a sigh of 
satisfaction. 

“ Thank you, Jimmie — a — a — tchu ! the dust 
has got up my nose, oh dear ! — a — kchu ! ” 
and there was a chorus of sneezing from us both. 

“Oh, you will soon get used to it; I did,” 
said Jimmie cheerfully, and then basely went off and 
left us perched up there on the beam, afraid to stir, 


Ralph’s “cub.” 

and not knowing the way down, while he and half a 
dozen other boys kicked up their heels derisively on 
the hay below with impish satisfaction, singing with 
great unction, 

“ Goosey, goosey gander, 

Why did you wander ? 

Up-stairs and down-stairs, 

/ Where you hadn’t ought-er ? ” 

Now wasn’t that provoking ? 

Mollie was too indignant to speak, and glowered 
down at the perfidious youths like a two-tailed Bashaw, 
as Jimmie said, for just one moment: then she delib- 
erately turned, walked with a steady step along the 
beam to a convenient place, and — jumped. 

It wasn’t very far, but it seemed a frightful height 
to us then, and the boys cheered and shouted • but 
she walked straight past them in dignified silence, 
brought a short ladder for me, and, taking my hand, 
shook the dust off her dress, and left without another 
word in search of Jack. 

There was a hush upon the mow, and an uncom- 
fortable feeling of remorse ; I think they rather 


Ralph’s “cub.” 

wished they had not done it, and there wasn’t so 
much noise up there after that. But we found Jack. 

PART II. 

We found Jack. He was sitting on a pile of straw. 
He had both arms around a fat pumpkin, wondering 
how mahy it would take to make one large enough 
for him to get into, eating a winter apple and watch- 
ing Ralph as he hammered away lustily at some 
queer box-like contrivance that he was making. 
Ralph was always making something, if it did not 
indeed turn out in the end to be nothing. 

“What are you doing?” asked Molfie curiously. 

“Making a cage for the cub, of course,” and he 
kept on steadily pounding without looking up. 

“We’re goin’ to feed ’im wive beechnuts,” Jack 
remarked with solemn innocence; “beechnuts and 
punkin-pie, ain’t we, Raf?” and that untrustworthy 
elder brother whistled serenely on with a nod of 
laughing assent; but we didn’t believe it. 

“ How about the wood-pile ? ” suggested Mollie. 


Ralph’s “cub.” 

“Perhaps there are other things that would please 
father more, in place of cage-making.” 

Ralph ignored that remark completely, with an air 
of dignity that said as plain as words, “That is boys’ 
affairs, which girls know nothing of.” So we went 
about our housework until tea time, when Jack was 
whisked away up-stairs and into his cot amid sundry 
howls of grief, and the rest of us camped down upon 
the rug around the open fireplace, awaiting the distin- 
guished travellers, especially the cub. 

“ Oh dear ! ” sighed Mollie for the twentieth time, 
“ I wish I knew what he was going to bring me ! ” 
And from that mysterious country ! 

That was where the golden-headed canes grew 
in the forests, among whose leafy branches flashed 
green and scarlet paroquets like flaming brands; 
where dear little monkeys swung through the air by 
the tails from countless hanging vines ; where beau- 
tiful flasks of perfumery drooped from the shrubbery, 
and meteor-like humming-birds whistled like bullets 
among the flowers, while from every bush by the wall 
and wayside hung boxes of guava jelly! 


Ralph’s “cub.” 


Those are happy days, when all things seem quite 
possible. 

Thus we chattered on, and the early dusk came 
down apace, and the lurid firelight gleamed fitfully 
from the snapping logs, casting huge shadows of the 
andirons upon the wall and ceiling. Mollie brought 
up a basket of apples, and some one upset a pail of 
nuts upon the earth ; then there was a scramble to 
rake them back from the fire, in which Grace got too 
near, and there was a dreadful odor of frizzed 
hair. 

“ We’ll have to dish her up for the cub’s supper,” 
said Mollie with a laugh, and then with a teasing 
glance at me, “I wonder if he will have cubic feet? ” 

“ Now, Mollie Preston ! ” I burst out in an aggrieved 
tone, “if you are going to tell every one of that 
speech of mine! how was I to know, when I am 
only in fractions ? Mother says that we shouldn’t be 
sarcastic, so now I ” 

And there were all the elements for a very pretty 
quarrel, which never got any farther ; for right in the 
midst of a sharp rejoinder a big hat and overcoat 


Ralph’s “cub.” 

appeared in the doorway, with a man in them. Then 
from out the depths of wraps came the highly charac- 
teristic query in a big round voice : 

“Hi-ho! girlies, is the supper cold?” 

And peace came in at the door, but not quiet. 

There was a whoop and a cheer ! a grand rush at 
the stranger, a general confused gabble, and then we 
were climbing all over him, with mother in the van ! 
Father had come — by the early train, and had 
walked up from the station. 

“Hoor-ay!” and Ralph gave a heartfelt howl as 
he broke into an impromptu double shuffle, with none 
to say him nay. 

There was a moment’s hush — a silence that was 
startling. We clung to him like bees, without one 
word of greeting. It was enough to know that we 
had our father back. The clock upon the mantle 
ticked away steadily in the semi-darkness with a busy 
alertness of Yankee energy; no old-time sedateness 
about it; it was a smart little round-topped, glass- 
doored, brass clock, and had a varnished case. It 
was all alive with importance, and held its own with 


Ralph’s “ cub.” 


the dignity of a man of business, among the sea-shells, 
and candlesticks, and the curly bird’s-eye-maple match- 
safe by its side. 

“Tick-tack, tick-tack, back-back, come-back, ker-r- 
r-r-r-r-r-r-r — ’’ and it rapidly struck the hour. 

How we loved that clock ! It knew just as well ! 

There was a queer sob from the cluster of girls 
around father; then another. It was catching, and 
Mollie put up her apron. There was danger of a 
heavy shower, and father began to look alarmed, for 
he was right in the middle of it, but there came a 
rescue in the nick of time. 

Ralph had just given a thundering cheer, and was 
drawing a deep breath for another, when far up 
in the top of the house came floating down the stair- 
way like a distant echo, “ Ooowa-a-way ! ” and a 
little imp in scarlet flannel came whizzing down the 
bannisters like a falling star, and landed in the rear 
entry in a heap. It was Jack! With a red night-cap 
on his head, looking like a baby Mephistopheles in 
his flaming legged night-dress, he charged straight at 
us, and having the outside chance, scrambled up 


Ralph’s “cub.” 

over our heads and sat down triumphantly upon his 
father’s shoulders, with the prompt question delivered 
with infantile directness, “ W’ere’s ee tub ? ” 

That broke the spell, and the tears dissolved into 
laughter. Not getting any reply in the hubbub 
that followed, and catching a glimpse of some- 
thing moving in the hall. Jack wriggled himself 
loose and ran to the door, coming full tilt against a 
dark-faced, slender youth, who was looking in with an 
expression of queerly blended mirth and homesick- 
ness. 

Jack sprang backward with a shriek that startled 
every one, and then discovering that it was not the 
expected cub, he returned, saying affably as he stuck 
out a fat little hand : 

“ Heyo ; oo is oo ? ” 

“ Bless my soul ! ” and father tumbled us all into a 
heap. “ I forgot all about you ; come in, Ramon ! ” 

Ramon came in. Mollie’s finger sought the pro- 
tecting shelter of her mouth as she sidled away from 
the front of the group, and with a sudden start 
scurried behind the rest. The others were seized 


Ralph’s “cub.” 


with a panic, and for the next half minute it looked 
like a case of “ chase-the-squirrel,” while father sat 
and laughed. 

“They are as shy as pigeons, Ramon, but they’ll 
get over that when they know you,” and then, turn- 
ing to mother, who was looking from one to another 
with a rather dazed air, “This is Ramon Valdez, of 
whom I told you.” 

“Told me.? Indeed you did not ! ” she laughed as 
she welcomed the stranger, thinking that it was one 
of the not unfrequent lapses of mind on the part of 
the traveller. 

“ Eh .? What ! Did you not get my telegram ? ” 

“Oh yes, we got that! and, by the way, where* is 
Ralph’s cub.? he’s been at work half the afternoon on 
its quarters.” 

There was a general look of blankness upon 
father’s face. We crowded around eagerly, and 
there was a babel of voices for a moment, that sud- 
denly fell to an awe-stricken hush as we caught the 
laugh in the dark eyes beyond. 

“If I am not insane, or deaf, or in a state of 


Ralph’s “cub.” 


blissful ignorance, some one else is ! ” he said 
slowly. “Will you please bring that telegram?” 

It was brought; he gave one glance, and sank 
back into a perfect convulsion of laughter. 

“Oh Ireland! Ireland! what blunders those sons 
of Erin make ! ” 

It was all the fault of that green Irish operator! 

“ Safely landed home to-night with young cub and 
family pupy.” 

Who could have translated that into the business- 
like message — 

'•'‘Safely landed; home to-night with young Cuban, 
family pupiV^ ? 

Ralph and Mollie looked at each other. She did 
not say “ I told you so,” but Ralph quietly stole out 
of the room and lighted a lantern. 

Presently the night air shuddered with a furious 
chopping, and there came a sound as of rending 
wood. It ceased after a while, and, returning, Ralph 
sat down again in his corner with an air of would-be 
unconcern. 

There was a marked increase in the pile of kindling- 


, - _ Ralph’s “ cub.” 

wood the next morning. There was over a week’s 
supply. 

But the “cub’s” quarters were among the things 
that were. • 


A SCHOOL FOR FLEAS. 


E were in a horse-car returning from Central 



V V Park, when ojar eyes rested upon this pla- 
card suspended above the head of the gentleman 
opposite : 

“ Go to see the Educated Fleas at No. — Broad- 
way.” 

Go to see them ? Certainly we would ! Fleas that 
would stay quietly at home to receive callers deserved 
to be treated with attention. We would visit them 
immediately. 

We left the car at the next crossing, mounted a 
flight of stairs, and found ourselves at the door of the 
Fleas’ reception-room. A young lady in waiting took 
our cards — twenty-five cent pieces — and conducted 
us to the further end of the long chamber, where 
stood a high baize-covered table. This, she said, 


A SCHOOL FOR FLEAS. 


was the stage upon which the learned insJJts were 
exhibited. Behind it, bowing adieu to a departing 
visitor, appeared their exhibitor, a tired-looking for- 
eigner. 

He turned to welcome us with great politeness. 

“ You wish to see to perform my Edicated Fleas, 
ladies. Ah, so ! they will with pleasure you amuse. 
First I make you to observe ‘Rebecca at the Well.’ ” 

This well was no bigger than a thimble, but it 
boasted a roof, and two miniature buckets suspended 
by a chain from a pulley above. The professor set it 

in the mid- 
dle of the ta- 
ble, and then 
looked around 
for Rebecca, 
who lay flat 
on her back 
upon a wafer, 
dressed in all 



REBECCA AT THE WELL. 


the magnificence of scarlet and gilt paper. Pick- 
ing her up with a pair of tweezers, he placed her on 
the well-curb, telling her to draw some water. Imme- 


A SCHOOL FOR FLEAS. 


diately^^o brown, thread-like arms thrust themselves 
out of what had seemed to be all paper robe, seized 
the chain beside her, and drew down one bucket 
while up went the other. The little Jewess had per- 
formed very creditably. Putting her back upon her 
wafer, the professor let us examine her through his 
microscope while he prepared for the next scene. 

This was to be a duel between two officers in tissue- 
paper uniforms, with swords tied to their small per- 
sons by the finest of hairs. Mounted upon their 
diminutive battle-field, one brandished his weapon 
savagely, -but his antagonist moved never a muscle. 

He sulky; he give me much of trouble,” re- 
marked the professor gravely. “ I chastise him 
many times.” 

Thereupon he caught up the offending atom be- 
tween his thumb and forefinger, gave him an admon- 
itory squeeze, and set him down again, saying quietly : 

“ Now he fight all right, you will see, ladies.” And 
the little rebel did fight valiantly, till the professor 
separated the combatants. 

Next he produced a tiny paper horse-car having 
delicate wheels of brass. 


A SCHOOL FOR FLEAS. 


“You shall observe it to have a hundred times the 
weight of one flea, ladies, but two fleas shall make it 
to run very fast, so ! ” 

In a twinkling off walked the flea horses, ‘the 
flea-driver holding the gossamer reins, and the 
flea-conductor standing on the rear platform in 
the approved way. At the end of the route, the pro- 
fessor lifted car, horses and all, and faced them in 



A TINY PAPER HORSE-CAR. 


the opposite direction, after which the novel span 
jogged back to the place of starting. 

Another span trotted along presently, harnessed to 
an open barouche in which were a lady and gentle- 
man attended by servants in livery. The gentleman 
was holding the lady’s parasol over her head in most 
lover-like fashion. 

But the prettiest thing of all was the ball-room. 




A SCHOOL FOR FLEAS. 


whose floor was the top of a small music-box. Upon 
a raised platform at one side were ranged the flea- 
orchestra, numbering some thirty performers, with 
flutes, and violins, and cymbals, and the-dear-knows- 
what, and in the centre stood two couples ready for 
a dance. The professor touched a spring, the box 
began to play, the Liliputian band flourished its in- 
struments with animation, and away whirled the little 
waltzers with such apparent zest that it was quite dis- 
enchanting to be told that each pair was tied together, 
and that it was simply their struggles to free them- 
selves which caused their dizzy gyrations. We knew 
each instrument was fastened to its performer and 
must move as he moved; but why all the musicians 
should bestir themselves in concert at the precise 
moment that the tune began was a mystery to us. 
The professor thought they were excited by the prox- 
imity of his hand as it touched the box, and they 
were eager for their dinner. He always fed them 
upon the back of his wrist, he said, showing us the 
red blotches they had made that morning in taking 
their breakfast. 

Observing that we glanced curiously at a lonesome 


A SCHOOL FOR FLEAS. 


flea exercising under a tiny bell-glass, he explained 
that that was a new-comer, caught only yesterday, 
and imprisoned there to cure him of hopping. After 
jumping from one side of the glass to the other for a 
day or two he would probably become discouraged, 
and walk humbly henceforth for the rest of his life. 
If not, he must be fettered in this way ; and the pro- 
fessor pointed to a poor little fellow dragging a 
chain and ball like a galley 
slave. 

' Afterwards he showed us the 
flea dormitory — a round paste- 
board collar-box divided into about fifty compartments, 
each one numbered. We saw at once the necessity of 
this sleeping arrangement. Without its clothes, of 
course one flea looked just like another; and had all 
been put to bed in the same room, how was the professor 
next morning to distinguish the waltzers from the 
horses, or the conductor from Rebecca at the Well ? 

“It is one long hour each morning that I dress 
them, and it is one hour each night that I make them 
to sleep,” said the professor, complainingly. “Yes, 
ladies, they do me much of care, and they die in four. 



UNDERGOING DISCI- 
PLINE. 


A SCHOOL FOR FLEAS. 

five months of time. My E^/<rated Fleas die much 
more soon than the fleas savage.” 

“ Ah ! then that is reason enough for educating the 
race!” thought we, moving away to make room for 
visitors just entering. 

Before we reached the door the professor had 
turned back to the starting-point, and we heard him 
beginning anew, “ First I make you to observe 
Rebecca at the Well.” 


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tiiein will know a great deal more about foreign countries 
.•ind the curious things they contain than could be gained 
from many larger and more pretentious books. The volume 
is profusely illustrated. 


•NEV/ Publications, 


Polly’s Scheme. By Corydon. Boston: D. Lotlirop 
& Co. Price $1. 00. Here is a book that ought to create a 
sensation; bright, breezy and jolly; full of life from cover 
to cover, and worthy a place in any of the countless carpet- 
bags which will be packed by vacationists this summer.^ 
“Polly’s Scheme” is one that has occurred to hundreds of 
weary city-dwellers when casting about to find ways and 
means to spend the summer months comfortably and profit- 
ably. It was for herself and husband to rent a nice little 
furnished liouse in the country for the summer, persuade 
their friends to live with them on the cooperative plan, 
save money, and be happy. Polly and her husband were 
young and inexperienced, and imagined that they had made 
. an original discovery. They were successful in securing 
just such a place as they dreamed of, and took possession, 
with the promise of boarders as soon as the season should 
open. The book is a history of the occurrences and happen- 
ings of that summer, and a most entertaining history it is. 
From the sudden advent and equally sudden departure of 
Mrs. Vivian Sylvester — who insisted on having a fire 
lighted every morning to take the chill off the air for the 
sake of her poodle — down to the close of the season when 
the curtain fails on the story and its characters, it is full of 
surprises and humorous incidents. • The character drawing 
is clearly and skillfully done, and the whole book hasn’t a 
dull sentence in it. It is just long enough to be read in a 
single afternoon, and the laziest man in the world could not 
possibly go to sleep over it. Mark it down for a sure place 
in the vacation bundle of books, even if it has to be read be- 
fore that time. It will bear a second perusal. ^ 

Some Young Heroines. Illustrated. By Pansy. 
Boston: D. Lothrop & Co. Price $1.00. Anothei* book by 
Pansy, made up of charming stories expressly adapted to 
the reading of girls, and filled with beautiful pictures. 
It would be difficult to describe the manifold attractions that 
are held between the covers of this book, but they can be 
easily got at by little readers when once the volume is in 
their hands. 


NEW PUBLICATIONS. 

Young Folks’ History of America. Eclitedby Ileze- 
Iviali Bultervvortli. Boston : D. Lollirop & Co. Price $1.50. 
In form and general api)earance this is an exceedingly attract- 
ive volnine. The paper is good, the type clear, and the illus- 
trations vlLli which its pages are crowded are well chosen, 
and finely engraved. Mr. Bntterwoi lh has selected for the 
basis of his work McKenzie’s “History of the United 
States,” which was published in England several years ago. 
The text has been thoroughly revised, changes made Avhere 
necessary, fresh matter introduced and new chapters added, 
the remcdelled work being admirably adapted for use in 
schools or for home reading. It sketches succinctly and yet 
clearly the gradual development of the country from the 
time of the landing of Columbus down to the present; 
brings into relief the principal occurrences and incidents in 
onr national history; explains the policy of the republic, 
and gives brief biographies of the statesmen and soldiers 
who liave rendered especial services to the country. The 
iiarralive is brought down to the present moment, and in- 
cludes an account of the inauguration of Gaifield, witli 
sketches of the members of his cabinet. An ai)pendix con- 
tains a list of the Presidents and Vice Presidents of the 
United States, with the dates of their qualitications; statis- 
tics showing the population and area of the stales and terri- 
tories, a list of the cities and towns of the United States hav- 
ing a population of ten thousand and upwards, according to 
the census of 1880, and a chronological table of events. 
There is, besides, an exhaustive index. * The w'ork should 
find a place in every home library. 

Warlock o’ Gle:n^varlock. By George MacDonald. 
Illustrated. Boston: D. Lothrop & Co. Price $1.75. This 
charming story, by one of the foremost English writers of 
the time, which has appeared in the form of monthly sup- 
plements to Wide Awake, will be brought out early this 
fall in complete book form uniform in style with A Sea 
Board Parish^ anti Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood. It is 
a picture of Scotch life and character, such as none but Mr. 
MacDonald can paint; full of life and movement, enlivened 
with bursts of humor, shaded by touches of pathos, and 
showing keen powmrs of analysis in working out the charac- 
ters of the principal actors in the story. The book w'as set 
from the author’s own manuscript, and appears here simul- 
taneously with the English edition. 


New publications. 


Doctor Dick : A sequel to “ Six Little Bebels. By 
Kate Taiinatt Woods. Boston : D. Lothrop & Co. Price, 
$1.50. Ever since the publication of that charming story, 
Six Little Rebels, there has been a constant demand Bom all 
quarters for a continuation of the adventures of the bright 
young Southerners and their Northern friends. The hand- 
some, well-illustrated volume befoio us is the result. Tha 
story begins with Dick and Reginald at Harvard, with Miss 
Lucinda as their housekeeper, and a number of old friends 
as fellow-boarders. Dolly and Cora are not forgotten, and 
hold conspicuous jjlaces in the narrative, which is enlivened 
by bright dialogue and genuine fun. What they all do in 
their respective places — the boys at college, Cora at Vassar, 
Dolly with her father, Mrs. Miller at Washington, and the 
others at their posts of duty or necessity, is entertainingly 
described. The story of the fall of Richmond ami the assas- 
sination of Lincoln are vividly told. One of the most 
interesting chapters of the book is that which describes the 
visit, after the fall of the Confederacy, of Reginald’s father. 
General Gresham, to Cambridge, and the rejoicings which 
follow-ed. The whole book is full of life and incident, and 
will be thoroughly enjoyed by young readers. 

Young Folks’ History of Russia. By Nathan Haskell 
Dole, editor and translator of “Rambaud’s Popular History 
of Russia.” Fully illustrated. 12mo, cloth, $1.50; half 
Russia, $2.00. Mr. Dole has for several years made a care- 
ful and special study of Russian history, and the volume 
before us bears testimony to the critical thoroughness of 
the knowledge thus gained. Russia has no certain history 
before the ninth century, although there is no lack of 
legend and tradition. Some attention is given to these, but 
the real record of events begins just after the time Vladimir 
became Piince of Kief, about the beginning of the tenth 
century. The contents are divided into two books, the first 
being sub-divided into “Heroic Russia,” “ R-ussia of the 
Princes,” “The En.slavemeut of Russia,” and “The Russia 
of Moscow.” The second book deals with Russia after its 
establishment as an empire, and its sub-divisious have for 
their special subjects, “Ivan the lyrant,” “ ihe lime of 
the Troubles, ” “ The House of the Romanoffs,” and 

“ Modern Russia.” It would have been in place had Mr. 
Dole given the reader a chapter on modern Russian i)olitics, 
a thing which could easily have been done, and which is 
absolutely necessary to enable the reader to understand 
current events and prospective movements in the empire. 
The volume is profusely illustrated, and contains two double- 
page colored maps. 


New Publications. 

' The Pettibone Name. By Margaret Sidney. The VI F 
Series. Boston: U. Lothiop & Co. Price $1.25 If the 
publishers had offered a prize for the brightest, freshest and 
most brilliant bit of home fiction wherewith to start off this 
new series, they could. not have more per'/ectly succeeded 
. than they have in securing this. The Pettibone Name, a story 
that ought to create an immediate and wide sensation, and 
give the autlior a still higher place than she now occupies in 
popular esteem. The heroine of the story is not a young, 
romantic girl, but a noble, warm-hearted woman, who sacri- 
fices wealth, ease and comfort for the sake of others who are 
dear to her. There has been no recent figure in American 
fiction more clearly or skillfully drawn than Judith Petti- 
bone, and the impression made upon the reader will not be 
easily effaced. Most of the characters of the book are such 
as may be met with in any New England village. Deacon 
Badger, whose upright life and pleasant ways make him a 
universal favorite; little Doctor Pilcher, with his hot temper 
and quick tongue; Samantha Scarritt, the village dress- 
maker, whose sharp speech and love of gossip are tempered 
by a kind heart and quick sympathy, and the irrepressible 
Bobby Jane, all are from life, and all alike bear testimony 
to the author’s keenness of observation and skill of delinea- 
■ tion. Taken altogether, it is a delightful story of New En- 
gland life and manners; sparkling in style, bright in incident, 
and intense in interest. It deserves to be widely read, as it 
will be. 

Life and Public Cabeer of Horace Greeley. By 
W. M. Cornell, LL. D. Boston: D. Lothrop & Co. Price 
$1.25. This is a new edition of a popular life of Greeley, the 
first edition of which was early exhausted. It has been the 
author’s aim to give a clear and correct pen picture of the 
great editor, and to trace the gradual steps in his career from a 
poor and hard-working farmer boy to the editorial chair of the 
most powerful daily newspaper in America. The book has 
been thoroughly revised and considerable new matter added. 






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